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By Andy, June 11, 2009 11:05 pm

It’s one of those words that in my prior church experience was perhaps not taken seriously enough.  What does it really mean to be “authentic” in the Christian context?

According to Merriam-Webster to be authentic is to be “not false or imitation : real, actual“.

Until recent years, I hadn’t really understood what that meant or how to do it.

And then I read Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz. I read Mark Driscoll’s Confessions of a Reformission Rev. G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. And suddenly, I started to understand - I saw how each grappled with their faith, with Jesus, with their church, with how they perceived themselves and how they were perceived by others in the Christian community and I could relate to their issues.

However I still didn’t know how to do it myself. It was not something that I grew up learning how to do (nor, in retrospect, was that encouraged, but that would be the subject of a much lengthier post), and to be honest, I’m not sure that I knew that I needed to be able to do it in the first place.

Until…I came face-to-face with men in my local community who encouraged me to be real with them.  Perhaps encourage is the wrong word.  These men demanded it of me, and I demanded it of them.  More to the point - our faith demanded (and still demands) it.  If I am to grow in my walk in Jesus, I need to confront my own weaknesses and be held accountable by Him - and He does that through other folks.  With me, He has certainly done that in the company of the brothers I now keep.

In recent weeks I have seen many of my brothers be very real about their lives, the way I have been with them.   In each circumstance…

…we listened.

…we encouraged.

…we prayed.

It was real.

It was authentic.

It was Jesus meeting each of us at his moment of pain.

And it was very good.

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By Andy, September 13, 2007 9:09 pm

With the weekend around the corner, and with me carving out just enough time right now to put up a post before finishing up some work I brought home (self-imposed deadline on our draft budget for next year, since the senior management have extremely limited schedules next week), I thought I would share one of the things that God has led me to do in recent months.

You see, this weekend, my family and I are leaving our church and joining a new church.   But not in the traditional sense.

My existing church is merging with another church to form a new community of faith that will continue to worship in the same building, at the same time, on Sunday mornings.   Several months ago it became clear that God had called both of our churches to come together at some point in the future and create a new church.  As a small group of us from both churches came together, we prayed over, discussed, and planned the steps that would create New Life Christian Fellowship.  Our inaugural service is this coming Sunday.

It has been a long road for all of us involved in the process, and there is still much work ahead of us.  The church we called home these past 3 years has been a true blessing to us, because each member of my immediate family deepened in faith at this church.  God used this church home to stretch each of us and take us to places deep within that none of us thought we had.  He challenged us here, disciplined us, and loved us here.

But God has spoken, and has called for the rebuilding of this temple, so that He may use us to reach those who don’t yet know Him.

As the prophet Haggai wrote:  ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty.

I am excited about what God is going to do here.   To those of you with whom I’ve shared this adventure privately, thank you for your prayers, because I know that God heard them and carried us through this process.

Jesus is going to be in the house on Sunday.   You are all invited to the party.

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By Andy, September 8, 2007 7:39 pm

Or How To Be Part of A Local Community.

September.

New school year.

New extracurricular activities.

New soccer season.

AYSO…American Youth Soccer Organization…or All Your Saturdays Over?

All kidding aside, today was the kickoff of Pacifica’s AYSO soccer season. It seems like every child under the age of 14 in this city plays soccer from mid-September until mid-November. Here in town, it was team photo day, with the opening day parade in-between…Margaret’s team photo at 11:30 am after the parade while Hank’s team photo was scheduled for 1:50 pm.

As much as I personally dread this particular day during the soccer season, mainly because of the disparate times between photos and the crush of families that descend upon this one field for the event (try parking within 3 blocks of the school - aaargh!), it is fun to see how many families we know participate in soccer every fall. Families and folks we know from every aspect of community life here in town all are part of fall soccer here. Whether it is through church, our local gym, the kids’ school, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, our former preschool, or Little League, or the local dance company, we know families playing soccer. I could not walk across the field without running into someone I knew through one of the above activities.

It is, of course, partly because we live in a relatively small community, but also because it is important for us to be part of the community in which we live. Our family has embraced our community, which has given our kids a lot of opportunities for enrichment academically, musically, athletically, and spiritually. And most of our friends and colleagues in town know we are Christians as well. We know that God has provided us and continues to provide us with opportunities to represent Him and to be used by Him to touch the lives of others in our community - and we do this by participating.

Our Saturdays are not “over” - rather He will provide opportunities for each of us in my family to touch the lives of others.

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By Andy, July 5, 2007 7:00 am

There is a scene in Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands which satirized late 20th Century American life perfectly. Amidst the suburban landscape of perfectly manicured lawns, each car pulled out of its respective driveway in unison with every other car in the neighborhood, speeding down the street to begin the morning commute, each car carrying just one person…the driver.

When I listen to the traffic updates on the radio in the morning, I can envision the traffic backups at all the major choking points in the Bay Area, and can picture the majority of vehicles with only one person…again the driver.

(Granted, I drive solo as well…but only 10 minutes to a nearby BART station, and take public transit to my job in downtown San Francisco - not that it makes me better than you…)

That said, I have been a solo driver making lengthy commutes to other localities in the region. And one of the things that is quickly lost is a sense of community, because driving is such an individual event, as we sit behind the steering wheel of a several thousand (or more) dollar vehicle, hoping to travel at speeds in excess of the speed limit. There is a sense of anonymity that we get when we’re behind the wheel, and even a strange sense of arrogance, the literal “It’s my way or the highway” attitude.

On this 4th of July, I was reminded of why it is important to step out of the proverbial fast lane of anonymity behind the wheel and into the realm of community, for there is no holiday in the American calendar that promotes community spirit more than this day in which we celebrate the birth of our nation.

After the kids and I got up (and my wife returned home after a night shift at the hospital), the three of us hopped on our bikes and rode down to the nearby coffee shop for a breakfast of bagels (and a latte for me). The regulars were outside on the patio visiting and reading the paper, while the girl behind the counter tried to engage my kids in a discussion of fireworks.

Shortly thereafter, we were back on our bikes, riding in the neighborhood and came upon a street on which several of our friends from church and school live, a U-shaped street that would be blocked off later for a massive block party, complete with multiple bounce houses for the kids, a watermelon eating contest, a bake sale (to raise funds for the troops), and a bicycle parade. Upon receiving the download of the event times, we continued on with our ride, heading home briefly, running a quick errand (in the car), and then back home, wherein we hopped back on our bikes and headed over to the bicycle parade on our friends’ street.

It was small-town America come to life. We rode through our suburban neighborhood, waving to pedestrians, wishing them a happy 4th. We paused for passing cars, and waved at them. Returning to their street, we bought some baked goods…my kids bought their treats with their own money! We headed over to the nearby shopping center for lunch, bought a couple of extra items for our barbeque, and we rode home.

Later in the evening, we were outside with our neighbors, lighting the safe and sane fireworks that we had purchased earlier in the week to support our local non-profit organizations (while marveling at the intricate “illegal” fireworks lighting up the skies in the valley around us).

The skies were blue, the coastal air was just warm enough, the beaches were full, and the spirit was high.

It was a celebration of community. It was a reminder that God created us as relational creatures…beings that need to be part of a community, not living in isolation, but being an active part of a vital, breathing community of individuals.

This is something that we as Christians so easily forget. We create our own communities of faith, forgetting that we exist to serve and be part of these larger communities, outside our churches, so that we may “make disciples of all nations” - beginning with our own.

I felt alive being part of my community today.

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By Andy, June 5, 2007 1:37 pm

Quick one for today as I start my sprint to the end of the school year (as PTO Treasurer) and therefore the end of my 3 years in that role…(and I must admit, I’m starting to run hard towards the end of THAT particular tunnel)…

::

Check out some of the new items I’ve shared from others in the sidebar - of note is the profile of Donald Miller by Christianity Today, and the thoughts on “Authenticity” over at Relevant. The profile on Miller captures how popular he has become as sales of his books, particularly Blue Like Jazz, continue to grow mainly due to word of mouth.

Similarly, the article over at Relevant asks the question whether we have made “authenticity” simply a new item in the checklist of what one must be or do to be a Christian - falling into the trap of whether we are truly being honest with each other about the darkness in our own lives. It is easy to give lip service without truly exposing our hearts.

Both these articles are convicting, and I think we need to think about how God might speak to us about the traps of religiosity that we can easily fall into…I know it happens to me.

Have a good day!

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By Andy, May 11, 2007 7:04 pm

Thanks to Google Reader, I’m able to share outstanding thoughts from my fellow blogging friends much more easily than cutting and pasting links in the body of a post.

That said, please check out the “Brilliant Thoughts from Beachgoers” today over in the sidebar. Of note are the latest entries from Hooked on Grace on worship and ICON on Mother’s Day. Both pieces are relevant and convicting.

See you soon.

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By Andy, April 5, 2007 5:45 am

I skipped 2nd grade as a kid. I went from a relatively young 1st grader with a November birthday to a really young 3rd grader with a November birthday over the course of a single summer. My reading level was well ahead of the other 1st graders, and my teacher and my school principal recommended to my parents that I leap ahead…advice which they took.

Academically, I performed well the following fall in 3rd grade, and throughout the following years at this Lutheran private school through 8th grade, I had little difficulty in most of my courses, garnering mostly A’s and A minuses, with the occasional B plus thrown in for good measure (typically in a religion or social studies subject). Of course, there was one little thing that my parents didn’t realize at the time…

…I would graduate high school at 16. Which also meant that I would start my freshman year of college at 16, turning 17 just a few weeks into my first quarter, learning to balance 5 roommates (we had a 3 bedroom suite with 2 bathrooms and a living room in our dorm), phone and utility bills, Friday and Saturday night parties, calculus, Fortran programming (I was then a mechanical engineering major - it lasted all of two quarters), and comparative literature.

In comp lit, we read various classics…most of which, sad to say, I had difficulty with keeping up the reading, considering that I was well on my way to failing calculus. We were assigned The Odyseey, The Iliad, Beowulf and…The Bible as literature. I recall our professor assigning various passages to read, from the creation story in Genesis to the Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness, along with supplementary readings from gnostic gospels (which I honestly never got around to reading).

I had a difficult time viewing the Bible as literature, separating the doctrine from the secular mythology perspective, separating doctrine from a secular critical analysis of the storytelling. And given that my faith today is stronger than it was 20 years ago, I think I would have an even more difficult time doing so, as I read the Bible as a source of wisdom and comfort (and yes, even the occasional chastising) from God.

So I found the article in the April 2 issue of Time Magazine to be quite interesting regarding the movement in various public school districts across the country to teach the Bible as an elective course for high school students…teaching the Bible as a book necessary for literacy in today’s world…whether you are a Christian or not.

It’s a good idea, particularly in a society today in which Biblical themes are used liberally by our politicians on both sides of the aisle and are used to promote or fight various pieces of legislation; Biblical themes are found in pop culture, whether in music, TV or film (see U2, “Lost”, “Star Wars”, “Constantine” and “The Matrix” among others), and it serves as a starting point to understanding two of the world’s major religions.

Can the Bible be taught logically, as literature? Absolutely, given the right teaching environment. In retrospect, I wish I was able to appreciate the studies given the Bible in my comparative literature class - it is my own fault that I chose not to attempt to understand a more critical literary viewpoint in reading the Bible for that class. But I also realize that in today’s world, with the prevalent use of Biblical themes throughout our society, it’s perhaps more important that students have a basic understanding of the primary themes found in the Bible…whether students choose to accept it as doctrine or as a fount of world literature.

I appreciate the honesty of a couple of students quoted in the article:

Why take a Bible class? I asked her. “Some of my friends are Christian,” she said, shrugging, “and they would argue about, like, whether you can be a Christian and believe in evolution, and I’m like, Okaaaay … clueless.” Williams signed up for a similar reason. “If somebody is going to carry on a sophisticated conversation with me, I would rather know what they’re talking about than look like a moron or fight my way through it,” she says. The class has “gotten a lot of positive feedback,” she adds. “It’s going to really rise in popularity.”

It is about learning to think critically and being able to form cogent opinions and arguments, whether in favor of Christ’s teachings or against. And we, as a society, should not be afraid to know and teach the Bible.

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By Andy, February 12, 2007 5:31 am

2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

James 1: 2-6 (NIV)

This is it…the final post for at least the next week (and likely longer) since I will be headed on vacation immediately after the end of this blog fast. Blogging has been a large part of my life over the past year and a half, and I have not gone longer than a handful of days without posting. But as our church is undergoing this “Week of Prayer and Fasting”, it is important that I take the time to remove something of importance in my life and use it to connect even more deeply with God and to listen even more closely to what He is saying to me.

However I will not be leaving you empty handed. While there maybe no new posts, I wanted to share with you highlights from the first 400 plus posts, along with assorted posts from around the ’sphere as well. Enjoy this journey, looking at the best of what’s around…

And I thank you for your prayers for me, my family and my church during this time.

::

1) In the Beginning… - my testimony, delivered at church.

2) Disdaining Death

3) Being Tested.

4) The Price of a Lie.

5) Reflections on my Youth Group Experience.

6) Life at 30 - a sermon message.

7) Life at Sea.

8) Why we found “erosion to be neato” back in 1983.

9) Whose words do you hear on Sunday mornings?

10) Joy.

11) Time.

12) Margins. - a sermon message.

13) Beauty.

14) His Prayer.

15) City of Angels - perhaps this should be titled - Why I Loathe LA.

16) Truth…or the lack of it.

17) Will I see you in heaven?

18) More on Truth.

19) Baptism.

20) Specks.

21) On Being Rich.

22) Denominations.

::

Here are posts from around the ’sphere that are must-reads.

From BitterSweetLife: Show Us Jesus, Parts 1, 2 and 3. And check this out on Heaven.

From Man Coming Alive: Yes, you can discuss the Christian faith through Caddyshack. And this on Father’s Day.

From Musings from the Hinterland: The entire 5 parter on C.S. Lewis and 8th Grade Girls Hoops. Part 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

From Run With It: Idols on the altar.

From Imaginations In Unity: Individualism.

From Someone Keeps Moving My Chair: How quiche can kill.

From The Carioca: His entire “Born Again” series, Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 , 8, 9, 10 and 11.

And from ICON: Desire, The Demands of the World, Magnificat, The Beginning, Failure, Silence is Golden.

There are SO many more posts out there I would like to share with you. This is but a token amount of the written brilliance to be found by all you folks out there. Enjoy, and I’ll see you on the other side.

Blessings!

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By Andy, February 11, 2007 2:43 am

The network television season is really a maddening concept. There are 52 weeks in a year, yet the standard network television season is anywhere from 18 to 23 episodes. The season typically coincides with the start of the school year in September, with 3 months (November, February, and May) during the season designated as “sweeps” - a sort of midterm exam for the shows, with ratings during this period determining the success or failure of most shows.

What we have seen in the past is that the first few episodes of the season appear in September, maybe into the first couple of weeks of October, then a bunch of re-runs occur for a couple of weeks, and in November a whole slate of new episodes air. As the holiday season comes around in December, the shows go into re-runs again or are replaced by Christmas specials. Most return with some new episodes in January after the college bowl season, and continue into February, the 2nd sweeps month. As March rolls around, they go back into repeats, with the Thursday and Friday shows disappearing to avoid counter-programming against March Madness. In April they return with new episodes, usually running right through to May towards their season finales. Of course, when the summer comes, we used to get nothing but repeats of our favorite shows.

And when these shows finally end their runs or are cancelled, it is only a year or two before they are shown on syndicated television, particularly the sitcoms, who fill the 7 to 8 o’clock evening hour before primetime (unless you’re in the Midwest, in which they fill the 6 to 7 o’clock hour), mashed between the local news and some tabloid journalism program, or after the late night talk shows amidst the landscape of “paid programming” where you can choose from repeats of a show about 6 gen-x’ers in stylish apartments in New York, a show about a radio talk show therapist with a brother who has a crush on his father’s live-in nurse, a show about a field hospital in Korea, or a show about a family with a sportswriter father and his overbearing parents who live across the street, or you can watch programming enticing you to purchase weight loss programs, abdominal workout devices, or get-rich-quick real estate schemes.

Such are the typical options with syndicated television programming.

Fortunately, here at “The Beach”, we don’t have such issues with our programming. Here you will not need to choose between paid advertisements for cutlery or repeats of a show about a delivery truck driver, his wife and live-in father-in-law. Quite the contrary - you can choose from programming about GK Chesterton, to CS Lewis, to Donald Miller. From suffering to joy, from Psalms to Ecclesiastes, from homeschool to alcohol, there are well over 400 pieces of programming to choose from, going back to September of 2005. And when you factor in programming from other “networks” - other bloggers who are a part of this community - the amount of programming is substantially more.

Tomorrow I will put up one final post before my “blog-fast” as my church enters its Week of Prayer and Fasting, beginning on Monday. This post will consist of a cornucopia of reading that I think best represents what “the Beach” community is about, from thoughtful discussions to baseball to flat out silly humor. And it will not only include my own work, but yours as well. You may have read some of these posts, while some may be new to you. One thing is for certain - it will be fun to look back at how each of us has grown through this period of blogging.

See you after church tomorrow.

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By Andy, December 18, 2006 4:33 am

Understanding the meaning of a “personal relationship with Jesus” took a long time for me. I know Jesus lived 2,000 years ago; I know he was a real guy with real feelings; I know that he really angered the local establishment with all his crazy claims of deity and being the Son of God; I know that he was nailed to a cross because all those folks didn’t like him.

I knew all that. In my mind, I knew the Christ story, from Christmas to Easter, and all the various church seasons in-between. Quite frankly, it was hard to forget, since my church always had new felt banners up in the sanctuary and on the pulpit and communion tables to mark the change of seasons, whether Advent, Pentecost, Lent or any other season that I fail to mention. I knew the 23rd Psalm, I knew the Lord’s Prayer (I attended a “debtors” church while attending a “trespasses” school), I knew the Doxology (”Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”), I knew the Apostles Creed - I even knew how to read the little numbers just above the upper clef that indicated how many syllables were in each line of a church hymn.

But I didn’t know Jesus.

The church I grew up in (and a subsequent church a few years ago) were not authentic Christian communities. These were places in which faith was viewed privately. Rick McKinley, in his book Jesus in the Margins, writes:

If faith is truly a private matter, then the only thing Christians have in common is a regular event called church, and there is no authentic relationship with one another in Christ. The shame of spiritual isolation is compounded when we realize that even at church no one knows who we really are. I talked with one person who told me that if anyone at church really knew who she was, the doubts and struggles she faced, they simply would not accept her. That floats over her head like a cartoon thought-bubble in a comic strip. It forces her to smile at church and tell everyone how great she is doing. The irony is, everyone there has the same bubble over their head and is thinking the same thing. And our enemy Satan has a field day.

In not knowing Jesus, I also missed out on what the church experience is supposed to be: that of a community of believers that is used by Jesus to help each of us become who He intended us to be. McKinley writes further:

Jesus and the New Testament writers tell us that we need each other. We need each other to help us develop into all that God intends for us to become.

When I came forward a little more than a year ago, in front of 20 or so believers, describing my testimony, I could feel at that moment that Jesus was finally making His home in my heart. It was at that moment that I knew that I was a part of a Christian community, warts and all. Is it perfect? Of course not - we’re all still sinners. And each of us continues to work at becoming more honest with ourselves and with each other about our own failings.

We don’t want to open up our hearts to fellow believers. It is hard. It is scary. It is messy. Because we are all like the woman in McKinley’s quote above - we are all afraid that we will not be accepted, much less loved, by others - even those in the church. But I have hope - as each of us recognizes our own failings in our lives we will pray for and lift each other up as we see ourselves in the faces of fellow believers. And we will have confidence doing it, because we know that Jesus is in the building - He’s in His House - which is in your heart and in mine.

Be free. Be honest. Be real.

13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. 14The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Galatians 5: 13, 14 (NIV)