Lost in Faith

Read Alan Hirsch’s Forgotten Ways in less than 5 minutes

Shoal Creek Leadership Training Project (LTP) Looking for Interns – Each summer Shoal Creek looks for college-aged students and young adults with the purpose of igniting a deeper personal faith in themselves, and to also expose them to the inner workings of employment at a local church. We house and feed our interns in exchange for their time in the mornings and involvement with some of our Shoal Creek ministry teams. The LTP gives interns the opportunity to practice what they’re learning about themselves in the bigger Shoal Creek environment. Any colleged-aged student or young adult who wants to take the next step in their spiritual journey should contact Justin Talley to talk about this summer. If you know a young adult who you think might be interested in something like this, please let Justin know that as well so that he can contact them.

justin.talley@shoalcreek.org

Received this email yesterday from a friend after he read my rather lenghty post on the 2nd half of the chessbaord.

Roy,

A friend of mine from college called this morning.  He runs one of the biggest cruise line companies in Florida.  He is on top of the world.  He has been a huge success since he left college and has a wonderful Christian family.  He spent a lot of time this morning describing their brand new ship and I was blown away with all the new features.  After about 20 minutes of describing state-of-the-art innovations, and filling me in on the latest with his family, he dropped a huge bomb on me.  His announcement shook me hard and brought me to tears.  Let me tell you a bit about my friend.

When Kirk started college, he was a very quiet person that kept to himself.  We pledged to the same fraternity as young immature freshmen.  He rushed/persuaded because his brother was a senior in the fraternity.  Otherwise, he would have been happy spending four years in his dorm room and just enjoy going to classes.  We got to know each other through mandatory rush programs for the pledges.  I’ve always seemed to gravitate towards guys that don’t fit the mold of a standard run of the mill person.  I made it a point to make Kirk laugh every time I saw him.  It really made my day when I would get him laughing so hard, he would fall to the ground and roll back and forth on his back.  He was very athletic even though he was shorter and thinner than most.  We joined all the intramural teams we could.  The guys started to dig Kirk as he contributed well to the teams.  At parties he started opening up to others.  He was always laughing and having a good time.  By the time he was a senior, he was voted the President of the fraternity.  We were one of the biggest groups on campus.

Once he came out of his shell, it was apparent he was a natural leader.  Towards the end of his tenure as President, he filled all the mandatory paperwork to apply to our National chapter for the yearly awards.  The changes he put in place, and successes he helped us gain that year, attributed to our chapter winning the top recognition as the best chapter in the nation.

Kirk had never really had a girl friend.  He had been set up a few times for formal parties, but never had a real relationship.

He and I went to a Christian rock concert our senior year.  I introduced him to a quiet girl I had new well from our church youth group.  I’d never seen him hit it off with anyone like this before.  Long story short, they have lived happily ever after together.

Back to the bomb he dropped on me today.  Kirk said that he feels he owes his life to me.  He said he wouldn’t be in the position he is in today without the influence I had on him.  He shared with me an invitation and said he wouldn’t take no for an answer.  He wants to invite me and my family on the voyage trip on the new ship.  This company normally operates the first trip as a training experience filled with employees, partners, and associates from the travel industry.  On this trip he said he not only wants my family on the cruise, he said he wants me to bring all my friends.  I told him that was way too generous.  But, he insisted.  I told him I could think of about five families that would love to join us.  He said that wasn’t enough.  I said I’m sure the rest of my family would love to bring their families.  He said that wasn’t enough.  So, I asked him how many I should plan for.  This is when I cried.  He said he needed 4.000 more rooms occupied.

He went on to tell me the cruise would not be going to the standard destinations.  They have acquired four new islands that have never been utilized.  They have build amenities that are out of this world.  The ocean water is crystal clear blue/green.  The locations are absolute paradise.

Here is where I need help.  I’m thinking if Shoal Creek had 1,000 people attend last Sunday.  If we gave each family the opportunity to invite 3 additional families, then we may be able to fill the rooms.  I know of no other way to fill this number of rooms.  I know this is short notice.  But, the timing is perfect as the cruise sets sail the week Liberty schools are on spring break.  Many folks may have already made plans.  So, we may need to expand the invitee list somehow.  I was thinking we could have tables set up just outside the service area for people to sign up, and list the 3 families they want to invite, and their contact information.  We could have people start calling their friends to ensure they will be available.  Oh, I forgot to mention.  His company is paying for buses to take us to Florida and back.  We will leave on a Friday, and come back 10 days later on a Sunday.  This is a 7 day cruise in paradise!

Do you think we can get that many people in such a short notice?

I’m sorry at this point to say…everything I’ve written above is complete fiction.  I’ve shared it in the spirit of filling the second half of the chess board.  Just think how quickly, and easily, people could make phone calls to 3 families, to spend 7 days in paradise.  Why is it so hard to call 3 families about an eternity in paradise?

Bill Wolkey

According to legend, chess was invented by Grand Vizier Sissa Ben Dahir, and given to King Shirham of India. The king offered him a reward, and he requested the following: “Just one grain of wheat on the first square of the    chessboard. Then put two on the second square, four on the next, then eight, and continue, doubling the number of grains on each successive square, until every square on the chessboard is reached.”

You may give me the wheat or its equal value on the 64th day. This is all I require for my services. The king agreed, but he lost his entire kingdom to Sissa Ben Dahir. Why?

In all, the king owed about 18,000,000,000,000,000,000 grains of wheat. This was more than the worth of his entire kingdom! 18-quintillion—446-quadrillion—744-trillion, etc

The second half of the chessboard is a phrase, coined by Ray Kurzweil.  Raymond Kurzweil is an inventor and futurist. He is involved in fields as diverse as optical character recognition , text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments…

While the number of grains on the first half of the chessboard is large, the amount on the second half is vastly larger.

The number of grains of rice on the first half of the chessboard is 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128 + 256 + 512 + 1024 + … + 2,147,483,648, for a total of 2³² − 1 = 4,294,967,295 grains of rice, or about 100,000 kg of rice.  This amount is about 1/1,200,000^th of total rice production in India per annum (in 2005).

The number of grains of rice on the second half of the chessboard is 2³² + 2³³ + 2³⁴ … + 2⁶³, for a total of 2⁶⁴ − 2³² grains of rice, or the square of the number of grains on the first half of the board. On the 64th square of the chessboard alone there would be 2⁶³ = 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 grains of rice, or more than two billion times as much on the first half of the chessboard.

On the entire chessboard there would be 2⁶⁴ − 1 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of rice, weighing 461,168,602,000 metric tons.

What does that have to do with ME? I believe that Shoal Creek is on the 2nd half of chess board.  In visual terms if you look at a growth chart, exponential growth starts slow but once the exponential factor hits growth is astronomical.

This is a populations growth chart.

It may be hard to pick out details but notice when the curve starts up the rate of growth continues to increase.

Let me apply this to Shoal Creek.  This Sunday about 1000 people hung out at Shoal Creek.  Imagine if 20% of them bring a friend next week.  1200 people the next week.  And if 20% bring a friend the next week 1440 people the 3rd week and so.  The graph lays long and flat for a while but when it turns up the climb is spectacular.

It took us 7.5 years to make it to 250.  It took another 7 years to get to 1000.  I am not mathematical genius but I see the hockey stick beginning to form!

Of course if these were just number then big whoop.  But they are lives being changed.  Men, women and children being brought into the family of God and learning to live out God’s mission.  Just today I was reminded of a friend whose been coming to the Creek who crossed the line of faith on a Sunday we were talking about J3 receiver to giver.  Wow!

This growth is going to cause us to talk about difficult things, a 3rd Service and When?  Planting new churches in areas where we already have people coming from.  Possibly exploring Satellite Campuses where put a portion of Sunday’s event on video.

But J3 and J5 are also going to cause us to explore taking the gospel to other parts of our city, the rural areas that many of you have come from or into extremely creative non-traditional forms of “church.”

I put church in quotes because church should be a synonym for God’s mission in this world and often it is only a representation of a religious social club.

I digress!  Non traditonal forms of church, like planting a church within a traveling sports team that tends to take families out of the natural weekend rhythm of weekend attendance.  Planting a church in  a workplace like Cerner or a school or even in a geographical location that has a number of Christians living or working close by, like downtown KC.

The hockey stick is forming and the I am going to do everything I can to put gas on the fire and see that everyone in Clay County, the Nortland, northwest Missouri and everywhere God lets us go has a chance to see and hear a clear understanding of the freedom found in Jesus.

Ecclesiastes 7:3 Journey 2 from self heart to soft hearted!  Awareness leads to brokeness, let brokenness do its work!Jjj

Message:  Crying is better than laughing. It blotches the face but it scours the heart.
New International Version:  Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.
Amplified Version:  Sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better and gains gladness

It is true that I am often in the greatest misery but still there is a calm pure harmony and music inside me

from Divine Commodity by Skye Jethani

Hard to think about this passage this morning without letting last night’s group inform me. I was once again amazed at the visceral confusion of earning and becoming an heir.

This is the key verse in earner to heir. vs. 5 He rescued us from the old way of life spoken of in the preceding verse. If you go to Biblegateway.com and read this in the Young’s Literal translation you’ll see how Paul makes his point. Greek is an inflected language, meaning the parts of speech change their spelling to indicate whether they are subject, object, etc. Word order is not really important since you know from spelling where things fit. But word order is important for emphasis. Generally the further up in a sentence the more emphasis that is being place. Notice the word order in the 5th verse (verse breaks are not in the original text!)

4 and when the kindness and the love to men of God our Saviour did appear
5(not by works that [are] in righteousness that we did but according to His kindness,) He did save us, through a bathing of regeneration, and a renewing of the Holy Spirit,
6which He poured upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour,
7that having been declared righteous by His grace, heirs we may become according to the hope of life age-during.

Paul put the ‘not by works of righteousness’ in front of ‘he saved us’. He is slamming his fist on the desk to emphasize the impossibility of human effort toward righteousness being a player in our reconnection with God.

Back to last night, I was surprised at the insistence that “good works” had something to do with reconnecting with God. After robust discussion and clear explanation from the Bible about our inability to pay the debt back there was still a desire to see that God only let “good” people into heaven.

If that is the case, we are all screwed! It is only the righteousness of Jesus Christ, imputed/accounted to us that allow us to be called Children of God.

Now with that said my heart being stunned by this irrational love that my heavenly father freely gives to me, I can’t do anything with my life but serve him. His love creates a mysterious transaction in my soul. A transactions that makes serve this father the pleasure of my life. I can’t thank of anything else I would want to do.

So my service is not a cause but an effect of the love of the father. Here in is love not that we loved him but that he loved us. His love is catalytic in my journey!

Father, you never cease to amaze, stun, captivate, overwhelm me. I am more deeply moved and motivated by this tour through J1 than I have been in a long time.

Thank you doesn’t seem enough! But you are enough.

Wanting to help in Haiti I started Skype chatting people in Haiti offering a connection to the outside world. This morning El.shaddai11 Skype chatted me. We engaged. They gave me a number, I called a Mom answered and a discussion started. This is the last piece of a 45 minutes experience in which we use the mobile phone for mom to talk and daughter to listen and chat back and I read to mom. Brother downloaded Skype and installed on computer while mom talked.  Once Skype was up, search for El.shaddai11 and bingo they were connected and I faded into the back ground.  What a day!

Wanted to help in Haiti so I started trolling Skpe users in Haiti and offering help via Skype chat. That was yesterday.  Today a call comes in on Skype from 23 yr old girl serving in orphanage 12 miles from Port au Prince Airport.

We chat.  They are totally blind to any news.  I called her mother in Florida and relayed messages over Skype Chat.  Then it dawned on me, I could call her and they could talk.  Via my cell phone she heard her mother’s voice but could only chat back.  Then it dawned on me that she could do this directly so I talked Mom thru loading Skpe and find her daughter’s skype name and then VOILA!  They were connected.

45 minutes of shear bliss when you interrupt what you are doing to help someone in desperate need!

Thank you Father, I prayed for a way to help and you provided thru my insane addiction to technology.