A Missional Icon...that few know about

Think missional is something new? Think again. It may be the fashionable new word of Christians striving for biblical authenticity but I was fortunate to have a Mom and Dad that were missional. They kept missional company like my Uncle Ed (image left) who, to me, is a missional icon.

Uncle Ed just turned 90 years old last month. I was able to go back to Oklahoma and spend some time with him. While his vision has faded with age, he still has an amazing missional mindset. While he's been a missionary to Mexico for sixty years Uncle Ed began living a missional lifestyle before he ever decided to be a missionary. There's too many stories to tell so my conversation below will reflect the results of Edgar Stone's missional lifestyle.

Me: So Uncle Ed, exactly how long have you been doing mission work?

Uncle Ed: Fifty-nine years. It'll be sixty next year.

Me: How many churches have you planted?

Uncle Ed: I've planted eight-eight churches, but we have two missions we've started in the last couple of months. A couple of the buildings have been blown away by hurricanes over the years but the work is still going on there.

Me: That's amazing.

Uncle Ed: The hurricanes?

Me: No, that you're still planting churches at your age?

Uncle Ed: What am I supposed to do? I don't think you can retire from doing the Lord's work.

(I cracked a huge smile and got emotional. Bring it in, Ken...)

Me: I guess the Bible School that you built is going strong?

Uncle Ed: Yep. We've graduated 575 pastors.

Me: Do you know how many churches they've planted?

Uncle Ed: No, but plenty I guess. I don't keep track of that. I've got enough to say grace over.

Me: And the sewing school...how many ladies have gone through that?

Uncle Ed: Over 800 now. They get a certificate of completion that means something to the Mexicans. It gets them jobs that pay $7 or $9 dollars a day instead of $2 dollars a day. A lot of the pastor's wives have gone through so they can earn money so their husbands can do ministry and plant churches. Some of them go through just to start their own business or get a better paying job.

So here's a guy that's ninety years old that's lived a Great Commission life - a missional life. Of course, there were revival meetings and crusades and the typical evangelism events that were the norm for his generation. But I know from personal experience that his opportunities to persoanlly share the Gospel didn't center around holding meetings. It centered around relationships that he built with people every day. It happened because he practiced social justice and was a pioneer in "business as mission." Then there's the mentoring of 575 pastors and their personal impact and who knows how many churches have been planted as a result.

That's a missional lifestyle.

Perez Hilton's and Miss California's "firestorm"

So Perez Hilton, the celebrity blogger, asked a question to Carrie Prejean (Miss California) pertaining to California's same sex marriage law and followed up with, ""Do you think every state should follow suit? Why or why not?". Not only did he say that her answer (born from her values and spoken with authenticity) cost her the title, he then vilified her by calling her a "dumb *%$@#"

"If you can't say anything good..."
Let me start by saying that I think the structure of Mr. Hilton's question was solid. Great setup, good application, and then a qualifying wrap. My appreciation for his interview skills and as a reputable blogger and especially a beauty pageant judge pretty much ends there.

"Just because you can doesn't mean you should."
So it seems that just about anyone can be a judge at a beauty pageant. I mean after all, I could be one. I blog. I'm a guy. I'm a pretty good judge of beauty (you reading this Michelle?). I am a student of popular culture and have been told I have some mad relationship skills. I haven't even gotten to my signature square glasses and my ever evolving "doo". My question is, "When do I get my phone call to get that gig?"

The answer will be, "Never". Mostly because I'm happily married and Michelle would slap me into next year. Another stellar reason is that just because I have the same qualifications as Mr. Hilton doesn't mean that I should take the gig. In fact, even though I have one more qualification than Mr. Hilton I shouldn't take the gig. You see, I'm not gay and he is. I have one more qualification than Mr. Hilton does in this instance.

Out of sheer curiosity I ask the question; Why would a beauty pageant ask an openly gay man to be a judge for a clearly heterosexual event? That's like inviting a livestock judge go to the Westminster Dog Show. It just doesn't make sense. Don't get me wrong, I'm far from homophobic. Quite the contrary. I have gay friends. It just seems stupid to have a gay man judge a beauty pageant.

What's worse is to have an inconsiderate, under-qualified judge at a competition that's clearly lost any relevance that it could possibly have ever possessed.

Oh yeah, the whole just because you can doesn't mean that you should thing comes from an ancient spiritual text that says something like "everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial." Smoke some of that.

As a side note, I'm positive that if someone called Mr. Hilton a "@#&^%$# whatever" for responding with his clearly biased opinion of Ms. Prejean's answer, he would use his media leverage to smear someone else.

Another blogging cycle begins

It's evident that I blog in cycles. I think it's more about workload than commitment. Seth Godin will remain forever the Blog King in my mind.

A new cycle/season in my life has begun. I've taken a job (9 months into it now) as the Maturity|Missions pastor at Chestnut Mountain Church. The title is a bit confusing. It's really an executive pastor kind of gig. What it boils down to is that I manage people so our senior pastor doesn't have to. There's been a reorganization with student's and children's ministries reporting directly to Jeff. I still have plenty to do...

In the last nine months I've traveled to Uganda, Kenya, and Germany for mission trip stuff. Interesting to say the least. I must admit that Germany was my favorite. Not because it was 1st world. If anyone reads this that knows me, you know that I prefer difficult mission work, both physical and spiritual.

Germany has a desperate need for more church plants. There's some cool stuff going on, but young adults in that country are starving for relevant churches. I'm still praying about how I can help out there. Pondering...

Spiritual disciplines

I'm not sure the current Christian sub-culture in America understands the spiritual disciplines. I'm not sure they want to know what the spiritual disciplines are or what they entail. My experience with Christian sub-culture in other parts of the world is that they don't need as much to grow at a greater rate than we do. Experiencing their Christianity makes clear to me that how we Americans view spiritual growth is, at best, skewed.

A contributing factor is that, in an attempt to engage people in spiritual disciplines, the marketing arm of every American denomination (especially mine) has attempted to create a nauseating amount of studies for every imaginable demographic. I'm thinking about writing the study notes to a new Bible called "The Anorexic, Single, Chemically Dependent Parent of Hyperactive Children Study Bible." Only in America.

Ubiquitous technology is also huge factor in our failure to engage in the spiritual disciplines. Technology is supposed to simplify our lives but it usually provides more clutter. I still love technology. I love iTunes. I love podcasts. I love the Internet, my cell phone, my bass guitar, my PowerBook G4, iPod, coffee pot with timer, WiFi, DSL, T1, satellite TV, TiVO, YouTube, and my garage door opener.

I heard a church leader in North Africa say that the cell phone was the 11th plague on Egypt. I think technology may be a plague to end all plagues, at least in America. Too much of a good thing is, well, too much of a good thing. Take frogs for instance. Frogs are okay. Frog legs are even tasty when they're cooked properly. Frogs eat pesky insects. Frogs are useful and make great National Geographic pictures. Frogs are great except when there's so many you have to pile them up and their decomposing carcasses stink to high heaven. Let me have frogs, but let me have them in moderation. Likewise with technology.

Getting your devotion on an RSS feed to your cell phone that you read during a boring meeting might qualify as engaging the spiritual disciplines. Maybe. It could happen. Or maybe you could open your Bible for 30 minutes instead of surfing the Internet, or checking email, or texting, or writing on somebody's Facebook wall, or watching season three of The Office...again.

Me? I'm going to end this post and pick up my copy of "The BIBLE in 90 Days; Cover to Cover in 12 Pages a Day" that I was enticed to buy when an endcap caught my eye at my local Lifeway Christian Store. Hey, it works for me. Do whatever works for you. Just engage in a spiritual discipline.

Alexa.com...go kill some time, but not too much

I found the website Alexa.com while I was reading a book for work about search engine optimization (SEO). It's a great site that shows current rankings for the most popular sites on the Internet. If you have a website, you can see where it's ranked. I downloaded the toolbar widget so I can see how popular sites are when I come across them.

Go kill some time at Alexa.com, but not too much time. Mindlessly entered into, it really deteriorates our relationship with God. More in a later post and a sermon at CMC on Jan. 27th.

People still checking simplyken out

Oddly enough, people stumble onto my blog. It's amazing. People are finding me with some pretty bizarre searches. Anyway, thanks to those who read...I guess. I'm definitely not trying to get ranked on Alexa.com, for sure.

So about the moniker thing...

Since it's been SIX MONTHS since I posted the last time, do you think I'm gonna remember? I've got other theology crankin' my brain right now.

Been thinking about the "born again" moniker...

And it's a good one. I've been thinking about it a lot recently due to a study on salvation we've been doing in one of our small groups.

More thoughts before the weekend...I'm a bit tired right now.

Bravo, Prince!

Prince is giving away, yes, giving away his new CD as part of a covermount. Nice. He's ticking off record retailers by doing so. I say, they need to get over it. It will probably be a catalyst to him selling even more copies than if he had gone the regular distribution route.

Maybe there's another monster hit like Purple Rain on this new project. I hope so.

OK, just one more...

"I feel like God does make everything happen for a reason."

So God made her drink and drive...and then He made her drive without a license...twice...and then He made her feel victimized.

Things that make you say, "Hmmmm."

Paris Hilton's favorite Bible verse...

"Ummm....I really don't have one."

I couldn't resist.

If you're ever in Southern California...

Try out a great sushi bar in Del Mar named Matsu Gawa. Except for my hand cramping because I don't know how to use chopsticks that well, the food was super fresh and the portions were large.

We took some clients out for dinner at Chart House, just south of Del Mar. The view was amazing (Sorry, no pics.) We made reservations through the Hilton and they made arrangements for the best table in the place and our menus had my bosses' name at the top..."Jeff and Susan Sanders party". Pretty cool.

Last night we ended up going to Carlsbad to eat at a Mexican restaurant. We weren't about to fight the traffic headed to San Diego for the Padres game. Hey, we live in Atlanta and we're not stupid, OK?

Anyway, it was a great trip that paid off big time for our marketing department. Hope to see most of you at church tomorrow.

Gone to San Diego

I'll be in San Diego tomorrow through Saturday. If you need me, email me, text me or call me.

Just remember that I'll be three hours behind. In 72 degree weather. On the beach. Eating seafood that's billed to the company credit card.

See you Sunday at 11:30am.

The first month of 47five17 has been pretty amazing...

Why? Well, let's just enumerate, shall we?

1. Not many students knew me that well.
2. It was announced it at church, but not much more than that advertising-wise.
3. A lot of students were coming off a pretty crappy senior year at church.
4. We're not a college town, per se. (But then again we are the home of Oakwood University!)
5. We haven't thrown a bunch of money at it.

Why has it gone so well so far? Let's enumerate...

1. Pastor Jeff has been behind it from before day one and has supported it big time.
   
2. You guys were way ready for something that wasn't HS, but was young adult.
3. A lot of you were coming off a pretty crappy year at church and were ready to engage.
4. There were more than a few that decided to stick around GSC...sweet.
5. The students and young adults of Chestnut Mountain like my hair.
6. Prayer.

Good times.

StumbleUpon

If you want one of the best time killers for surfing the web, go to StumbleUpon. Put in your interest, click on the little globe in your browser, and stumble upon some of the coolest, eclectic, and obscure websites ever.

Enjoy.

Spiritual beings living a human existence

Our pastor, Jeff Benefield, has recently and frequently used the phrase "We are spiritual beings living out a human existence." Or at least something really close to that. Fact is, it's a very true statement, especially proven in recent conversations that I've been involved with. For instance...

A couple of days ago when working at BestBuy, one of my favorite managers was passing the time with me (we were brutally slow), and was telling me that he had found a great movie about vampires. I asked him why, and he said it was because that the movie a lot of the cast of Aliens in it and that immediately made him a fan. He said it was just cool. So how is that spiritual? People innately gravitate to spiritual things. It's not the first time someone said they loved a vampire movie. The whole vampire thing is, to be sure, a spiritual topic. Demons, crosses, Holy Water, life after death, etc. It's fascinating stuff to a lot of people. We are spiritual beings living a human existence, even if the most popular spiritual topic isn't "Christian."

Another example can be found in my oldest daughter. She's enamored with the thought of the spiritual, sometimes with spiritual stuff that isn't founded in a Biblical worldview. Just last night, I went downstairs to grab a book and found her watching "The Exorcist III." While she had only watched just a few minutes of it, I was a bit ticked off and made her change the channel. I chose to use the event as a chance to disciple her....We ended up having a great discussion about the reality of demonic activity and the misrepresentation of the majority of Hollywood's portrayal of spiritual things. My ultimate response was that she couldn't watch crap like that without knowing exactly what the Bible says about it.

Since Christians are spiritual beings living a human existence, we should take advantage of the insight that Scripture gives us into the spiritual. It's just plain lazy to let Hollywood or the journalistic establishment drive our worldview of spiritual things. So get on Biblegateway.com and search demons, angels, heaven, hell, and anything else that movies like The Grudge, The Ring, Underworld: Evolution, or Constantine portray as truth. While there may be entertainment value for some in those kind of movies, it's important to remember the following:

As a spiritual being living out a human existence, you've got to know and understand the Truth.

New header design...

Huge thanks to super-freak artist Jonathan Maloney for the new header design. How cool is that? As much as I love the pic of the old blue truck, it was time for a redux.

Thanks again Jonathan...all I can say is, "Wow!"

Another Paris Hilton blog entry...

I wonder how much time humanity lost today in following Paris Hilton's re-incarceration? The court did today what her family failed to do...enforce boundaries and show her the consequence of living outside those boundaries. Her courtroom antics were more like a chided toddler than a grown woman. Go figure.

One of the most refreshing things I heard today was from an 11 year old girl visiting our home. After our family's conversation about Ms. Hilton ended, the girl asked, "Who's Paris Hilton?" I responded, "It's really good you don't know." I wondered out loud to myself, "Why did I waste so much time listening to other people talk about it?" Perhaps I'll waste less time on stuff like that in the future.

Paris Hilton is a thumbnail of what's wrong with pop culture.

Wow, that's a great sentence if I may say so myself. I should have just left it at that. I'm too lazy to delete the other paragraphs.

Later...

This Sunday...

Why is there pain, evil and suffering? (for Sunday, June 10)

Add to that, 1) Why do bad things happen to good people? 2) is God punishing me for things I've done? 3) Why Sanjaya? (just kidding).

Everyone has asked at least one of the above questions to themselves. The human response runs the gamut of, "I don't know" to "God is punishing me" to "I hate God for letting that happen." None of the responses is an clear Biblical response. The goal of this Sunday's discussion is to help you get your head around the basics of the question and build an understanding of evil and suffering that results in a Biblical worldview.

The college courses that touch on evil and suffering (philosophy, humanities, sociology, psychology, ethics, etc.), will rarely be taught from a Biblical worldview. They will, more than likely, be taught from a completely humanistic view of the world. So, your choice is to 1) Go to class relying on an uneducated "pop" Christian understanding of the deeper questions of life, or 2) Have an educated and Biblical worldview and be able to discuss it with more confidence. With that being said, let's choose the latter.

Here's some stuff to research: (You can post questions!)

Google the following important dead guys and their basic thoughts on pain and suffering:

- Albert Camus
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

How do the following nonevangelical faith systems view evil and suffering?
- Hinduism
- Christian Scientists
- Buddhism
- Zoroastrianism
- Manicheism

How did Plato view evil and suffering?

Look up and find what you can on the following Biblical principles (views) of evil and suffering:
- The Punitive principle
- The Disciplinary principle
- The Revelational principle
- The Redemptive principle
- The Eschatological principle

Here are some Biblical passages to meditate on:
- Genesis chapters 1 and 3.
- Romans 5 (verse 15-18 then 1-5)
- Romans 8 (verses)

Later...
Ken