Why Dad?

On our way home from school I decided to break the news to Ethan. He had only one question, "Why Dad?"

Listening to all the talk about Miguel Cabrera and thinking about my own family's history with alcohol and drug abuse, I am realizing that all of us are asking the same question. We feel a lot like this:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQveng3Wxz8?rel=0]

You know what though? We don't want to hear the answer. Why would a man who has a great wife sleep around? Why would a person with a family who loved him turn to drink? Why would a kid with everything in front of her slice up her arms? Why does a kid with a great future waste it away sitting on a couch getting high?

We are constantly left with the question, "Why Dad?"

The answer, while simple, is profound. The answer, while simple, sounds weak coming off the tongue. The answer, while simple, is not what we want to admit to.

The answer is that the world is broken. Each of us are broken. There is a cloud of stink that sticks to us and we can't shake it.

Some of us can go about hiding it really well, for a while.

Some of us can even hide it for our whole lives, but deep down we know it's there.

What bothers most of us is that we know, "...but by the grace of God go I".

What keeps any of us from doing these things? What keeps us from living out our brokenness in such a way that leaves us alone in a jail cell?

It seems like there are two are things. The first is that there is someone in our lives who is willing to fight for us. They make it clear that they are with us and for us no matter what. For me, it was my mother. I remember when my mom and dad were divorced and her telling us, "You will not become 'those' kids. Your Dad and I love you and we expect that you will become successful, hardworking, good men. This divorce is not an excuse for anything."

She backed it up. Over and over.

The second is that there comes a point where individuals take responsibility for their own lives. There was a time, for me it was college, that each of us have to decide how we are going to live and whether or not we will take full responsibility for our actions. For those of us don't get to that place we become like this:

http://www.xtranormal.com/site_media/players/jwplayer.swfhttp://www.xtranormal.com/site_media/players/embedded-xnl-stats.swf

So, how did I answer the question, "Why Dad?"

I told Ethan that we live in a broken world that is filled with broken people. Sometimes this brokenness gets the better of them and they do things they don't want to do. That's why we have each other and that's why we need each other. Then I told him we need to pray for everyone we know who's broken and hurting because God really does care. That's why Jesus came here and that's why Jesus died and rose again.

Because God, really does care.

How would you answer?

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Do you care?

[podcast]http://danielmrose.com/wp-content/uploads/Grace-110213-reduced.mp3[/podcast]

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Dear Miguel

Dear Miguel,
I don't know you. I have not ever met you. I have watched you play baseball every summer since your arrival in Detroit a few years ago. You may be the best baseball player I have ever seen. Every night before I go to bed I see your life sized poster hanging on Ethan's, my nine year old son, bedroom door.

You are his favorite player.

He's never met you either.

Ethan and I cheer for you. We feel like we know you because you are in our home nearly every night from April through September (hopefully October too). Ethan wants to be a baseball player when he grows up and you are one of his heroes.

Today as I drove into work I heard on the radio about your DUI. My heart broke and my eyes filled with tears. I thought this is stupid, I don't even know him. My heart is broken because I know that Ethan when he watches Sportscenter tonight or tomorrow will find out too. So, I know that he and I will have to talk about it.

I know that he will experience heartbreak.

I know he will cry.

I know I will hold him.

I can't imagine what it's like to be you. The pressure you must feel everyday has to be overwhelming. To live every single day in a bubble because you play a boy's game better than anyone else has to be one of the most difficult things there is. I don't want to pretend to understand. Because I don't.

I do want to say this, I am praying for you and Ethan will be too. Whether you know it or not you're part of our family. You're one of us, even though we've never met you. When you hurt, we hurt.

Miguel, I hope that you will set aside baseball for a while and get the help you need. I hope that some day soon Ethan and I will be able to watch you play baseball again. We will be praying and asking that God will heal your brokenness and that he will break the addiction to alcohol.

My hope is that you will realize that you cannot do this on your own. My hope is that you will realize that you are not invincible and that you need other people to come alongside you and care for you. Let them help. I also hope that you will realize that there is great grace, mercy, and community available to you in relationship with Jesus if you will repent and seek the forgiveness he offers.

Ethan and I will be praying and waiting.

Sincerely,
Ethan's Dad

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Your GPS is Broken

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=danielmroseco-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=0470486724
Missional Map-Making: Skills for Leading in Times of Transition is one of those books that jumped out at me as one that I needed to read. First, it was penned by Alan J. Roxburgh who has been a key player in the missional movement for a very long time. Second, the title alone highlights the fact that Roxburgh is not just talking recipes but is seeking to dive deeper into the heart of what is happening in the church today.

The text is broken out into two parts. The first is entitled, "When Maps No Longer Work". In this first part Roxburgh makes a cogent argument that the world is not changing but has changed. The shift has occurred and our culture has moved from the "enlightenment/modern" understanding of the world to the "post-modern". This means that our entire way of understanding the cultural terrain is broken.

Roxburgh uses maps as his key metaphor. He argues that each of us have internal maps to help us navigate our daily meanderings through life in this broken world. This is the primary function of worldview. They are to provide us the means by which to make sense of the world around us.

But what happens when the world is no longer what it once was? What happens when the maps no longer work?

This is catastrophic when it comes to leadership. Roxburgh makes great connections from the business world and from the world of philosophy to make his point that leaders must not use the old maps but must be willing to change their maps so that they can lead the community of God's people toward reaching a lost world.

I think one of the best arguments he makes is in chapter 7 where he discusses the development of the internet and compares it to the culture at large. The internet was initially a linear connection of a handful of super-computers. It is now an interconnected web with no beginning or ending. This is true of our culture. The boundaries are being erased and as a result we struggle to even speak "multi-culturalism" or "pluralism" because inherent to both are boundaries.

The boundaries are disappearing, so argues Roxburgh, so what will the church do about it?

Part two, "The Map Making Process" seeks to answer that question. There are four key components to building a new map that Roxburgh discusses. The first is to assess and understand the changes that have taken place in your community. Unless we have a firm understanding of the lay of the land it will be very difficult to draw a new map. We must become surveyors of the new landscape.

The second is the cultivation of a core identity. This core identity is developed from the Biblical narratives and calls people to a renewed confidence. It is a pushing down to the "regular folks" the mission of God and removing it from the hands of the "pros".

The third is the "cultivation of parallel cultures in the kingdom". This means that we must ease change into being by living out the new culture alongside those in the old. As more and more people live off the new map the old map will give way. While this is requires patient and slow change it is the way of love.

The fourth are "partnerships between a local church and neighborhoods and communities." Roxburgh argues for the church to partner within its neighborhood to meet real needs and to care for the community within which it resides. These partnerships will help the church to ask the right questions and begin to draw an even more proper map for it's world.

Conclusion

This is a great text. It's strength lies in the critique of contemporary church culture's ability to engage with a changed world. It's weakness lies in application. While Roxburgh provides some good stories, the reader is left wondering, "How?". I was expecting this from the start (thanks to a very well done introduction). The truly engaged leader will be spurned on to creativity and thoughtfulness.

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Create. Creation. Creative.

Creation: the act of producing or causing to exist; the act of creating; engendering.

We are all little creators.  We are designed to create.  Some of us may do this ways we would call "creative"; poets, artists, authors, or painters.  Regardless of how creative you feel, you as a person created in the image of God, are to create. This is what it means when the Scriptures talk about the "subduing" and having "dominion" over the creation.

We are to leave the world better than when we found it. We are to build, shape, mold, and design.  This is what it means to be human.  This is the distinctive difference between us and the animal kingdom (and opposable thumbs).

To be human is to create.

To be Christian should mean to create at the highest level.  Sadly the creatives among us are largely ignored or cast out. A friend says that we plucked out the eye of the church (although we like musicians because they can be 'used' in the worship service).

When I look at the world today the Christians are at the bottom of the rung when it comes to creating.  Sadly we do not create well. We used to (read here Tolkien, Lewis, Sayers, Dostoyevsky, etc..) and the music used to be the best (Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc...) but now we create for the lowest common denominator.

The church has co-opted pop culture and has done nothing to improve it, but typically is a poor mimic.  "Christian" film is poorly written and poorly produced.  "Christian" music tends to be meaningless drivel with the words "Jesus", "Spirit", and "God" thrown in to make it spiritual. "Christian" fiction is often overly sentimental with no real connection to the realities in the world around us.

I am not saying that everything is bad.  There is good.  But, on the whole, Christians are not creating at a very high level.

Christians would not be considered to be at the top of their crafts in the arts (with the exception fo U2).

But our creation doesn't stop here.  We must look at education, business, politics...everything and ask, "Where are the Christians"? In business it seems that many Christians are doing well (Chik-Fil-A, Interstate Batteries, etc...).  In education the Church is holding steady at some places (Calvin and Wheaton) but it is largely on the outside looking in as more and more Christians retreat from the education system.

In politics...that's another post for another time.

Here's the bottom line: we can no longer whitewash cultural engagement with the adjective "Christian" and assume that means it is "Christian" because often times it is sub-Christian. More on this as we look at critiquing culture in the next post.

See the introduction to this post here.

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I "Liked" it = I "Did" it, Really?

We live in a unique time in the history of the world. If you don't believe me check out this video:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8]

Did I mention that video is a year or so out of date?

Regardless. The reality is that the world is a very different than it was just a decade ago. We live in a time where our world is more interconnected than ever through mediums such as Facebook, Twitter, and Wordpress. We are able to express our thoughts and ideas to the globe in a keystroke.

This is for the most part, in my opinion, a very good thing. It's good because for those of who are seeking to make change we are able to express our ideas to the world at large in a way that is fast, nimble, and easily accessible.

There is a darkside. A very darkside. One that I think is something we must begin to unravel or it could become so epidemic that change will be a farce.

In the most recent edition of the MTV Sticky Facebook was the central theme. There was an article entitled, "Social Story Telling" which caught my eye. It did so because I like stories and I really like thinking about the new and different ways that we can tell in the emerging generations.

This article broke my heart with three sentences:

To support my friend in Egypt, I have already signed up for the virtual march of millions along with friends and 328,977 fellow Facebookers. We are all choosing to take a stand online in support of an event, enabling us all to attend an event digitally and making our voices heard in a non-physical way. (Much safer than getting caught short by a lobbed fire extinguisher). However, we are still able to impact on an issue that means something to us.

I had to do a double take. Did she really just say that through hitting the "like" button they are having an impact on an issue?

Yes. She did.

This is what I think of that:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ4sEXiRP4k?rel=0]

This is the darkside of social media. "Virtual Participation". The consequences are significant. As we consider how to build the kingdom of God in the emerging generations we must realize that our greatest difficulty will be to engage their participation "IRL" (that's, 'in real life' for you older folks).

The kingdom of God will not be built through hitting a "like" button. It grows through the faithful obedience of a covenant people proclaiming the message of their King.

We cannot let the "like" button win. Huxley's Brave New World with its unlimited entertainment is where we are heading. Will we as the Church sit idly by or will we call, train, and send a new generation of leaders to subvert the Empire of Consumerism Entertainment?

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Culture War - The Introduction

The Holy Spirit lives in those of us who have been reconciled by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Those of us who are invited into and adopted as sons and daughters of the living God have received our new but old identity as ambassadors.

He gives us all we need to be who we are. This is it what it means to human.

What does this ambassadorship look like?

We create culture.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
(Genesis 1:26-28 ESV)

This is the cultural mandate. Created in the image of God and commanded to "subdue and have dominion", this is our mandate.

There two sides to this mandate. The first is how are we doing as culture makers? How are we, who are called by the name of God, doing at creating?

The second is how are doing at critiquing and engaging culture?

The next two posts will address these issues.

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