This year, the Denver Rescue Mission tried something new during the annual Easter celebration–washing feet! There were also doctors on hand to offer foot advice and remove callouses and such. New socks and shoes were distributed. It was a great success.
Where does your worth come from?
by MandiIf you’re anything like me, it doesn’t come from where it should. It doesn’t come from God. It comes from the people around you. It comes from the clothes you wear, the car you drive, or the tv you own.
I read this today:
I was at church a couple of weeks ago listening to Chris Jarvis, the pastor of outreach, talk in his sermon about how, when we are stripped away of everything in our lives we feel gives us significance, we find our core. And when we find our core, we come to some kind of point of origin where we can be with God and He can name our true selves and give us the significance that we so desire in our lives. It’’s like standing naked, in front of God, with nothing attached to us to give us meaning or value other than the sheer fact that it is God and only God who can speak to our core being and tell us that we are loved. And good. And valuable. And worthy. Just because He knows us and tells us who we are in Him. Without the J. Crew. Without the espresso maker. Without the flat screen television. Just us. (I’m not sure this happens in suburbia to often. I should know.)
And it is when we find the “just us” and the value God places in us that we no longer need the trinkets that we felt gave us significance and value before. Chris said that we get so caught up in who we are in Him that we give everything around us significance and value, and not the other way around.
Hm.
And I thought, Maybe that’s why I like to shop at Goodwill.
I’m sure that seems like an odd thought to have during a church service. But I realized that, at Goodwill, I determine the value of the articles I’m buying. I walk in, already justified to the world through God’s love for me, see a brown J. Crew t-shirt and go, “That’s awesome.” And, poof, just because I like it, it has value. Same goes for the yellow and orange plaid sheets I bought the other day. Poof! I like them and that’s all that matters.
[...]
Because I want only God to tell me who I am and that I am significant, worthy, and valuable.
And, thankfully, no one at Goodwill does that.
Maybe that’s why God’s allowing this rough time for me. To strip me of everything in order for me to get to the place where it’s just me and God.
BWC Strikes Again
by MandiThere’s an article in the current edition of the Burnside Writer’s Collective that makes my current troubles seem like nothing.
From Extolling the Virtues of Sacrifice:
Pretty Remarkable Statistic #1: 1.1 billion people are without safe drinking water, while Americans consume 26 billion liters of BOTTLED water annually.
My wife brought home some bottled water from the grocery store about 6 months ago, and I was reading the label on the back one afternoon and found that the water was “bottled from a municipal source in Wisconsin.” I wondered if “bottled from a municipal source” meant that some guy was sticking this big empty bottle under the faucet in his sink. I do like bottled water, but tap water works just fine in most places, and frankly, clean water is something that I have come to see as a right given to each of us by our Constitution. But we should all be aware that clean water is something that over 1 billion people will never have, unless we help them get it. For example, I have discovered that several different organizations will actually go into villages and construct wells from which the people can draw clean water for the next 10 years. That sounds great, doesn’t it? It actually only costs between $4000 and $5000. That seems both reasonable and achievable.
Pretty Remarkable Statistic #2: Every 16 seconds somewhere in the world someone dies of hunger, while 2 out of 3 Americans are considered overweight.
My wife hates wasting food, but inevitably, at the end of dinner we have something left over on our plate that we end up throwing away. I always say we should have a box where we put the extra food and then we can send it to Ethiopia or somewhere that needs it. That’s a horrible joke, and I think I’ll stop saying it, but it is pretty crazy how much food we waste while people are actually dying of hunger. I am not even close to overweight, but that is due mainly to metabolism. I bet if my metabolism was different that I would be overweight, because I sure eat like a horse sometimes. And while I feast like a king, someone just like me who happened to be born in a different part of the world goes without food.
Pretty Remarkable Statistic #3: Americans spend more annually on trash bags than nearly half the world does on ALL goods.Wow. I can’t really think of something funny or interesting to say about that. This is the type of statistic that is a little embarrassing, if you ask me.
Pretty Remarkable Statistic #4: An estimated 22 million people died from preventable disease in 2001; 10 million were children.
Over the last year, there have probably been 5 different occasions where I felt sick or felt that something might be wrong with me, and I have yet to see a doctor. It’s certainly not because I don’t have the ability. On the contrary, the company I work for pays for 100% of all medical expenses no matter what. So you would think that I would go to the doctor more often. But I don’t; I don’t have a good reason why I don’t—I just don’t. But I could if I wanted. I could just go to a doctor and get a prescription to take care of some ailment, or I could just go down to the local drugstore and buy something over-the-counter to fix whatever is wrong. This is a luxury that billions of my brothers and sisters in this world cannot afford, and millions of them are dying because of it.
Pretty Remarkable Statistic #5: 1 in 16 women in sub-Saharan African dies in childbirth.
It’s far more interesting to compare this pretty remarkable statistic with another one: 1 in 3400 women in the United States dies in childbirth. We must either conclude that all of the good doctors are here in the United States and none exist in Africa, or we must face the fact that these women in Africa die simply because they do not have basic reproductive health care.
Pretty Remarkable Statistic #6: 40% of the world lacks basic sanitation facilities.
Many of us won’t even go into a gas station restroom that has perfectly good plumbing. Or in the case of Britney Spears, some of us will go into a gas station restroom with bare feet. Basic sanitation is another right that I tend to assume is standard issue for every American. If garbage were to start piling up in our alley, I would probably call the city and ask why they weren’t picking up our garbage. And if they couldn’t help, I would probably take the garbage down to city hall and put it in their alley. And in-house plumbing; good grief. If we still lived in the outhouse days, I don’t know if I could make it. I love the fact that we can just make our waste disappear just by pushing a little handle. But the fact remains that good sanitation is one of the primary reasons that I don’t die of preventable diseases.
Pretty Remarkable Statistic #7: All of us could do something to change this, but many of us won’t.The most pretty remarkable statistic of all is the one where we realize our own contributions to the lifestyles of the impoverished. We are each complicit in the travesties that exist in our world.
Consider the costs of eradicating some of these needs:
The cost of basic education for all: $6 billion.
The cost of water and sanitation for all: $10 billion.
The cost of reproductive health for all women: $12 billion.
Basic health and nutrition for all: $13 billion.
To put this in perspective, consider that Americans spent just over $18 billion on consumer products (largely for Christmas gifts) during the weekend of November 24-26, 2006, which is the largest shopping weekend of the year.
That’s basic education for all and reproductive health for all women. Or it’s basic education and water and sanitation for all with a little left over. Or it’s basic health and nutrition for all or reproductive health for all women with a lot left over.
All. That means everyone who needs it. Everyone in the world.
Trackposted to Blue Star Chronicles, third world county, A Blog For All, Pursuing Holiness, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Right on!
by Mandi“No matter how you pick and choose your favorite Bible passages, if you know that Jesus died on the cross for you, that’s going to affect the way you treat other people. If you’re a Bible-believing Christian, maybe you choose to emphasize evangelism or maybe you emphasize works, but you can’t ignore Jesus’ example of unconditional love on the cross.”
~Heather Zydek
Shane Claiborne
by Mandi“How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday?”
Most of you probably won’t watch this in its entirety, but I hope you do. The Irresistible Revolution is an amazing book written by Shane Claiborne. He’s an “ordinary radical” for Jesus Christ.
This video is 50 minutes long, and it covers most of what’s in his book.
If only more of us were like Shane (me included).
At the end of the presentation, Shane shows a video clip of a child who is severely malnourished and suffering from PTSD. He is shaking uncontrollably. Until he is touched. The power of a loving touch is amazing. That segment made me break down…sitting at my desk at work. If you don’t watch anything else, at least go to the end of the video* and see that. See the power of love.
*You’ll find the segment when there are 7:15 minutes left.
Dirty Girls
by MandiThere’s an article in Relevant Magazine by a woman named Anne Jackson. She tells a very personal and painful story of her addiction to porn. It’s not only a man’s addiction.
Of course I never mentioned my struggle to anyone. Looking at porn was typical, even expected, for guys but a girl? A girl who likes porn? I often questioned my sexual orientation.
As hard as it is for me to admit this, while I was reading her story I felt as if I were reading an account of my own struggle.
I’ve never admitted that in public before. Only a select few know that I have struggled with an addiction to pornography. Some of you who are reading this right now are probably shocked beyond belief. But reading Anne’s story has given me the courage to say it. This may not count as saying it aloud, but it is a public declaration.
I’m going to post the article in it’s entirety, but I ask you to pay special attention to her reasons why. She has eloquently put into words the exact reasons I allowed this addiction to overtake me. Thankfully, God is a big God, and He’s bigger than any addiction.
Dirty Girls: The New Porn Addicts
Anne Jackson
The last place you’d expect to see a porno would be the living room of a pastor.But in between my family’s Christmas portrait and a broken, dot matrix printer sat a computer screen. Little did I know the place where I typed up book reports or instant messaged my friends would also become the doorway to an endless amount of forbidden fruit—and an endless amount of guilt.
Growing up the daughter of a Baptist preacher-man, I was the 16-year-old poster child for naiveté. My family had just moved from a small, secluded west Texas town to Dallas, and within a matter of days in my new residence, I was bombarded by the prevalent sexual culture of a big city.
Strip clubs and billboards lined the highways. There was a giant sex store just a few miles from our house. Ignited teenage hormones and the temptation to give in to my curiosity proved to be a dangerous combination.
My parents and brother were fast asleep as I connected to the internet one night. I searched for the word “sex” and within seconds had access to a sea of well endowed platinum blondes doing things with guys (and girls) that I’d never seen before.
Because I lived at home and the only computer was in the living room, there weren’t many opportunities to do my “sexual education research,” but whenever I was alone, I’d quickly satisfy my interest.
I graduated from high school my junior year and moved out when I was only 17 years old. I had my own space with my own computer, and all the free time in the world. I’d go to work (at a local Christian bookstore), come home, and look at porn almost every night.
I frequented erotic chat rooms, watched movies and browsed through hundreds and hundreds of pictures. Soon my porn binges started affecting my performance at work and my relationships.
Of course I never mentioned my struggle to anyone. Looking at porn was typical, even expected, for guys but a girl? A girl who likes porn? I often questioned my sexual orientation.
Why did I like looking at naked women? Was I gay? Bisexual? A pervert? I hated what I was doing so much. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t stop.
The cycle continued for years. Binging, feeling guilty and swearing I’d never do it again, only to give in a few days later. I prayed for God to take the desires away. That’s when I realized it was more than just looking at pictures.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I had more than enough pictures saved in my memory to reflect back on, even if I was able to stay off the computer for a while.
So, why do women struggle with this? Although stereotypically we’re not as visually stimulated as our male counterparts, we’re not blind either. There is something about a woman’s body that is beautiful and mysterious and even forbidden, and that toys with our psyche and tempts us.
At least for me, viewing these outwardly flawless women fed a huge emotional need. I was able to put myself in the role of what I was seeing, and by doing that, it made me feel beautiful and accepted.
I was transformed into a perfect, sexy body, and I was desired and wanted. I was able to escape my own flawed physical appearance and be transformed, in my mind, to this perfect woman.
My online activities also played out in my daily life. I was engaged for about a year and cheated on my fiancée. After that, I “dated” several new guys a month, getting physically involved with them in some regard.
According to everything I had seen, to be accepted and loved meant a sexual relationship, and what girl doesn’t need to be accepted and loved? I gave so many pieces of my body and my heart away during those years.
When I was 21, I was in a serious car accident that caused me to reevaluate how I was living my life. At the time, I was pretending like there was no God, except for when I needed His forgiveness, and only then would I come running back to Him. After the wreck, something finally clicked, and I realized that love does not equal sex.
It was at that moment when I decided to turn around—to change my thinking—and then my actions would eventually (and hopefully) follow. I had to say goodbye to my online habits, and to my offline ones as well.
It’s been close to 10 years since my first encounter with online porn, and I’d like to admit I’ve had a perfect run at purity. I wish I could say I’ve always lingered on the right thoughts or shut down the computer when the temptation got to be too much, but the truth is, I haven’t.
I’m still a girl who struggles. I’m still a girl who lives one day at a time, depending on a God whose design for sex and love is so far beyond what I could even imagine. So each and every day, I pray for God to first direct my thinking and then redirect it as necessary.
And I’m grateful that He is faithful to meet me somewhere between the mouse and the computer screen.
Tags: Christianity, Addiction, Porn
What does a Christian look like?
by MandiI was raised in the Bible belt. Good old Southern fundamentalism was rampant. I grew up believing that Christians are dull, boring, cookie-cutter people who are always looking for what you’re doing wrong. In fact, for several years I became a dull, boring, cookie-cutter person of faith.
I was dead wrong. I actually lived a miserable existance for awhile because of my very wrong preconceived notions about Christianity. The sad thing was, no one ever told me my perception was wrong. My perception was reinforced from the pulpit three times a week.
I can still remember when I realized there was a LOT more to life than what I had. I began going to Chi Alpha Campus Ministry my senior year in college and encountered people who lived for Christ–and they were full of life! It was so strange to me. People who loved to proclaim Christ’s love and grace–not His wrath and condemnation.
When I began to realize there was more to a life in Christ than I realized, I started reading Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller. This book revolutionized the way I thought about Christianity. Don drank beer and smoked a pipe (gasp!). And he loved God. I had always been taught that they were mutually exclusive and anyone who did those things were worldly heathens on an express route to hell. But Don Miller loved Christ, and that love was evident. As he shared his journey, I found myself longing for the relationship that he had with Christ.
Bottom line: Christians aren’t all the same. Christians can have blue hair, piercings, and wear punk clothing. Christians aren’t plastic cookie-cutter people. We have fun. We laugh. We love. It isn’t about judgment or condemnation. Not even close.
Tags: Christianity, God, Jesus, Love, Grace
More on homosexuality
by MandiSomeone asked me today how to treat homosexuals as the precious human beings they are to Jesus without condoning their sinful lifestyle. I will try to answer that here.
It isn’t easy. It’s a lot easier to read someone’s writing on the matter and say “Yes! I agree with that!” than to actually put it into practice. Especially when you’re someone like me who tends to live in a “Christian bubble.” But Scripture is clear. We are to love people–ALL people. Not just the ones who look like us, think like us, and believe like us. Remember, Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. He came to heal the sick. And if we are truly trying to live in His steps, then it is the lost and sick that we should be concerned with. They are the ones who need our love more than anyone else.
A person is a person above all else. We don’t define people by their sin. As Scot McKnight put it, people “are not morality acts or immorality acts.” A homosexual needs to be respected and loved as a human being above all else.
It seems that Christians like to categorize sin and the people who commit the sin. For example, Joe who just told his mom he finished his homework when he really hadn’t rates a 2 on the sin scale, Mary who lives with her boyfriend rates a 7, but Barry, the homosexual man rates a 10. Why do we do that?
People will often refer you to 1 Corinthians 6 because that chapter contains these verses (9-10): “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
This is a great proof-text that says homosexuals will not go to heaven. But you have to take it in context. Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians because, after beginning their new life in Christ, they were beginning to slip back into their old immoral ways. A man in the church was sleeping with his father’s wife and the church was allowing it. The church in Corinth was associating themselves with so-called believers who were sexually immoral and disassociating themselves from those in the world they should have been helping.
Verse 11 is important here: “And that is what some of you were.” Past tense. Paul is telling the church in Corinth that they were sinners but now they are clean. This is the equivalent of Jesus telling the adulterous woman, “Go, and sin no more.”
This is why you can’t use this verse as a prooftext against homosexuality. Paul is speaking to the church. He is reminding them of where they came from and who they are now in Christ. It’s no big secret that sinners who have not surrendered to Christ will not enter into heaven–this includes liars, thieves, idolators, and yes, homosexuals.
So why do we place homosexuality at the top of our “sin scale”? Why do we believe that a homosexual man is a worse sinner than the woman living with her boyfriend? Is homosexuality really any different than fornication? They should both be treated the same–if they are not Christians. We can’t expect someone who has never met Christ to act Christ-like. That’s our job. And in acting like Christ, we show them grace. We show them love. We invite them to our tables so that they may see the light we bring to the dark world. Jesus led by example more than anything else.
Jesus and Homosexuals
by MandiI have found the most objective and Christ-like response to homosexuality. Scot McKnight has posted on his blog a series about Jesus and Homosexuality.
Brief excerpt:
Humans are Eikons; humans are people; they are not morality acts or immorality acts. That is my point. If we believe, as I do, in God’s embracing grace that awakens in us the capacity to embrace God, ourselves, others, and the world (see Embracing Grace), then we will begin each and every moral discussion with the fact that humans are Eikons of God, persons, people, relationally-charged folks whose central need is to relate to God, self, others, and the world. So, I begin right here: How would Jesus have “treated” homosexuals? The answer to that question is incredibly simple: he would have treated them as Eikons, as human beings made in God’s image who are designed to reflect God’s glory in this world by relating to God lovingly, to themselves lovingly, to others lovingly, and to the world lovingly. They would have been welcomed at the table of discussion, they would have been invited to listen to him, to interact with him, to follow him, and to fellowship with his followers. They would have been challenged to live before God as Jesus taught. In short, they would have been loved by Jesus. Not shunned; not humiliated; not ostracized; but given a seat for as long as they cared to be with him. He would have told everyone and anyone that there was a seat (or place; they didn’t use chairs) at the table for them.
…………….
If I may, I’d like to draw a significant conclusion at this point: the walls around Jesus were permeable. The walls of most churches are impermeable. Those in and those out are clear. I find the recent trend of many Christians, many of whom are “emerging” folk, to create environments where the walls are permeable to be one of the most significant features of the emerging movement and these environments have the capacity to unleash kingdom power. Jesus’ table fellowship, which is the heart of his mission, is more like coffee discussions at coffee shops or what a student calls “party evangelism” or “porch missions” than it is like “church” as we now know it and do it.
How right he is! We spend so much of our time judging and ostracizing when Jesus would never have done the same. Jesus would have invited everyone to his table. He loved everyone. Why can’t we be a little more like Him?
