Comments (4)

By Jeff Gang, January 28, 2012 8:06 pm

David with his Birthday Cake (Made from scratch by my wife).

I have a friend named David. He lives in an orange grove. He lives in a tent. Most people would say he is homeless. And I would have to agree except David’s real home is 1041 Corporate Drive. That’s the address of the church I pastor.

I have a friend named David. He rarely changes his clothes. His hygiene is almost non-existent . David smells bad too. When I talk to him, I am greeted by the odor of cigarettes and Bud light beer. People don’t like to sit near him in church. I’ve even heard people don’t want to worship God when David is near.

I have a friend named David. He comes to church every week. He comes on Friday night to hear the worship team rehearse for the next day. He comes back again the following day, for both services. He sits through CrossWalk U. where we talk theology and philosophy. David tells us about the night Jesus Christ walked into his tent and talked to him—and he wasn’t even doing drugs. He tells us this story, again, and again, and again. David loves our church. David prays for our church—every night.

I have a friend named David. He’s a former drug addict. He’s an alcoholic. His mind is gone. At times he doesn’t remember my name, my wife’s name, or my kid’s names. What does David remember? He remembers how his mother died when he was young. How his wife left him in Colorado and broke his heart. He remembers that he used to do the “hard stuff, but not anymore”, as he says. He remembers to tell me these stories every time I see him, as if it’s the first time. And David remembers, that every week when he gets to church there’s warm coffee waiting for him, sometimes a bagel and donuts too. Continue reading 'I Have a Friend Named David'»

Comments (2)

By Jeff Gang, November 2, 2010 11:37 pm

Note: I am re-reading Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy. Over the next several weeks I’ll be posting my reflections as I make my way through a book  that changed my life nearly a decade ago.

Last week I said, What Jesus Knew: Our God-Bathed World, is one of the most important chapters in Willard’s book. Namely because he gives us a vision for putting our confidence in Jesus Christ—crucial for anyone who really wants to follow him. Here are further reasons why we can trust Jesus with our lives.

1. God Wants to be Seen
God isn’t hiding from us. He wants to be seen, but in the spiritual realm we don’t see things the same way we do with the naked eye. Part of seeing God is desiring to see him.

Persons rarely become present where they are not heartily wanted. Certainly that is true for you and me. We prefer to be wanted, warmly wanted, before we reveal our souls—or even come to a party. The ability to see and the practice of seeing God and God’s world comes through a process of seeking in intimacy with him. (p. 77)

2. God is Not in “Space”
If you go looking for God in “outer space” you won’t find him (e.g. the Orion Nebula). However that doesn’t mean God isn’t there. God operates in a realm that we can’t see with our finite vision.

… the air our body requires envelops us in every hand. To receive it we need only breathe. Likewise, “The air’ which our souls need also envelops all of us at all times and on all sides. God is round about us in Christ on every hand, with his many-sided and all-sufficient grace. All we need to do is to open our hearts. (p. 78)

Continue reading 'Tuesdays with Willard – Chapter Three [Pt. 2]'»

Comments (1)

By Jeff Gang, October 19, 2010 8:00 am

Note: I am re-reading Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy. Over the next several weeks I’ll be posting my reflections as I make my way through a book  that changed my life nearly a decade ago.

In the second chapter, Gospels of Sin Management, Dallas sees as a crisis in Christianity. Christians aren’t that different than non-Christians. This has resulted in our anemic witness for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The main reason? We are not disciples of Jesus. Rather we have turned Christianity into a “bar-code” religion where anyone can go to heaven if they have the right beliefs, bypassing the need to follow Jesus. As Willard writes:

Some ritual, some belief, or some association with a group affects God the way the bar code affects the scanner. Perhaps there has occurred a moment of mental assent to a creed, or an association entered into with a church. God “scans” it, and forgiveness floods forth. An appropriate amount of righteousness is shifted from Christ’s account to our account in the bank of heaven, and all our debts are paid. We are accordingly, “saved.” Our guilt is erased. (p. 37)

In contrast to this “gospel”, Jesus comes to each of us as the master teacher, seeking people who will become his “apprentices” and learn his ways and do what he did. In the process they will become like him, transformed from the inside out.  This means we must move from a faith marked by the right beliefs to a faith that takes Jesus seriously, i.e. one that is marked by faith and confidence in him. Willard explains it like this:

What must be emphasized in all of this is the difference between trusting Christ, the real person of Jesus, with all that that naturally involves, versus trusting some arrangement for sin-remission set up through him—trusting only his role as guilt remover. To trust the real person Jesus is to have confidence in him in every dimension of our real life, to believe that his right about and adequate to everything. (p. 48-49)

This is the challenge of following Jesus Christ in this world. Do we trust him and have confidence in him? Do we rely on him for everything? Or is it just an idea? An ideal we hope for someday? How we answer those questions influences how we live out our faith in the world. When we seek to follow Jesus, to become his students, or as Willard says, his apprentices, we learn to trust him completely, even in the face of death. And when that happens, we’ve entered into Jesus’ eternal kind of life now.

Comments (1)

By Jeff Gang, September 21, 2010 11:39 pm

Note: I am re-reading Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy. Over the next several weeks’ I’ll be posting my reflections as I make my way through a book  that changed my life nearly a decade ago.

Dallas Willard, says he wrote The Divine Conspiracy, “to gain a fresh hearing of Jesus.” Willard believes over familiarity with Jesus’ teachings have led many Christians to “profound ignorance” about following him, meaning “he [Jesus] is not taken to be a person of much ability.”  For example, when Jesus says love your enemies, he can’t be serious, it’s an ideal that doesn’t work in the “real” world. In contrast Willard argues, Jesus’ original followers took him at his word, they saw his teachings as the best way to live in this world. He writes:

The early message was, accordingly, not experienced as something its hearers had to believe or do because otherwise something bad—something with no essential connection with real life—would happen to them. The people generally impacted by that message generally concluded that they would be fools to disregard it. That was the basis of their conversion.

The Divine Conspiracy, p. xiv

Continue reading 'Tuesdays with Willard – Introduction'»

Comments (0)

By Jeff Gang, February 21, 2010 8:17 am

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And … love your neighbor as yourself.”

I pastor a church in the suburbs called CrossWalk. We have a saying around our church that we are learning to love well.  It’s our mission and it comes from this simple yet challenging teaching of Jesus.  Scot McKnight refers to this as the  Jesus Creed. Several years ago be began reciting it throughout the day. It transformed his life and eventually led him to write The Jesus Creed.

Since the Jesus Creed is the basis of  CrossWalk’s mission we decided to encourage our community to go through Scot’s companion book 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed during the season of Lent. Each day provides a simple reflection on learning to love well. So far it’s been a good experience. In fact my family is using it everyday. We’re reciting the Jesus Creed with our kids each morning and evening (we’ve even had some fun with it while driving around town).

So if you’re looking for something to add to your Lenten practices this year, there’s still time to grab a copy and join us on our journey. In fact, come by CrossWalk this week if you are in town and I’ll give you a free copy (We gave away 300 copies at CrossWalk the last few weeks). There’s a few books left, but its first come first serve at this point.

Comments (0)

By Jeff Gang, February 10, 2010 1:53 pm

This week is Transfiguration Sabbath at CrossWalk. The lectionary readings come from Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2; and Luke 9:28-36, (37-43). I am focusing on the Gospel reading for my sermon this week, but I’m weaving all of the readings together to make my point. Dwelling in these passages leaves me in awe of God’s humility. What kind of a God chooses to reveal his glory to the world through suffering (Lk. 9:57-62) and brokenness (2 Cor. 4)? Would anyone choose to make up this kind of god? We want temples and shrines for our gods. But the God of the Gospels gets things done another way. And our “departure” (Lk. 9:31) is the same—the path of Jesus Christ and his radical call to discipleship. So what are the implications? How about the church is meant to give herself away rather than prop herself up with success, impressing people with her buildings, attendance, or cash (a kind of pseudo-glory)?  Seems to me, Jesus’ path is the only way the world is transformed. I think Henry Nouwen would agree:

“Jesus showed us all that the very things we often flee – our vulnerability and mortality – can, at any moment, become the place of holy transfiguration, for us and for our world.”

- Henri Nouwen: Writings Selected With An Introduction By Robert A. Jonas