Category Archives: jones

Hate that is socially acceptable

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Any Christ follower should profess that it’s unhealthy and unChristlike to hate. Hate is destructive. Hate is the opposite of love.

Since childhood we have been trained that it is socially acceptable to hate certain peoples.My son has bought into it and already preaches it as true, and the reality is that you probably do too.

Think about the movies we watch. Think about the heroes we cheer for. It often guises itself as justice, but in the end it is really just justified hate. My son believes that it’s acceptable for a hero to kill a bad guy. In his dreams (literal dreams) fire breathing clocks destroy bad guys while the good guys stay far enough away from the first to stay safe. Bad guys die while good guys hopefully go free. When good guys die it’s a tragedy, when the bad guys die it’s justice. Bad guys deserve to suffer good guys deserve to destroy the bad guys. Both the hero’s and the villains kill, its just that the heros kill the right people while the villains kill the wrong people.

What an interesting line we’ve drawn too! Who decides who’s bad and who’s good? Those lines were easily distinguished when I was a child. But as I grow older I’m finding that the good guys do terrible things and the bad guys sometimes do good things. Was Steve McNair a good guy or a bad guy? Was my grandpa a good guy or a bad guy? It all depends on perspective doesn’t it? Last week Steve McNair was a good guy. This week he’s a bad guy. Was Martin Luther King Jr. a good guy or a bad guy? He had affairs, doesn’t that make him a bad guy? And yet his death is a tragedy. Oh how the lines are blurry!

As a follower of Christ I see him coming alongside the “bad guys” of his day and calling the “good guys” names. As a follower of Christ I hope that I can help to reshape my and my sons view of who is deserving of death, of what justice looks like, and of how I can love my neighbor (as a side note, in the Good Samaritan story Jesus teaches us that our neighbor includes our enemies). While there is always a need for consequences, I wonder if we’ve forgotten how much we have been forgiven and have instead begun to call our neighbors accounts payable…hmm…I think Jesus told a story about this…

peace.

Dear Jones

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Dear Jones, my wish for our relationship can be expressed no better than through this video. This is my dream for you and I…

Update

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Last night I skipped out of Renovatus’ worship gathering in order to spend some time in Salem with the Soma community. It was wonderful. What a neat community with lots of younger people who are eager to follow Jesus in radical ways. Jess and I were blessed to be able to share with them some of what God has been doing in us and some of what our church planting plans are.

I could probably write more but I don’t want to. I’m going to enjoy today with my family. Tonight my sons school (2-5 year olds!) are puting on a Spring program. It is 100% created by the children. Each of them creates their own character and then together they write a story. Jones’ character is a red blood cell rock star. Needless to say it’s going to be a great night.

A Letter to the Perverts

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I want to use words in this post that would not be appropriate for this venue. They may not be typed out, but they are being screamed out from this side of the computer screen. You’re disgusting, you’re perverted, and if I met you right now I’d want to hurt you in many ways. I know that you do it because you’ve been so badly hurt, I know that there are probably reasons for your perversions, for your twisted view of pleasure and what is normal. But right now I’m just furious and don’t want to think about the fact that God loves you, Jesus died for you, and all that wonderfully true stuff.

In many ways it is my fault. We are in the process of backing up all our home photos on Flickr. And it turns out I wasn’t paying good attention as I was uploading the first 5000 photos. I uploaded some of my kids naked. You know, bathtub pictures, diaper changing pictures, etc. As it turns out any picture that had any form of my naked children has received numerous views. And by “any form” I mean even upper thigh, naked baby butt, and hospital newborn photos. It sickens me to think of the perverts looking at the naked pictures of my children, but I’ve done everything I can (deleted them from the account) to prevent it from happening any more. Part of what sickens me too is that some of “those” people have been in my family. I’ve eaten Thanksgiving lunch with “those” people. And many of “those” people live in these neighborhoods that we will be planting a church in.

Sick.

I know Jesus loves you…

But you’re sick.

May God one day redeem you from your perversion.

Post Modern Thought

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I found my son climbing on top of his play kitchen just a few minutes ago. He’s got a climbing structure in his play area for climbing and is not supposed to climb on his other stuff. I asked him if he thought that it was a good choice to climb on his play kitchen and he responded:

Daddy, daddy, dad, dad, I’ve thought about this and I’ve decided that this is a good choice for me. It’s a good choice for me, but it’s not a good choice for you. Maybe its not a good idea for you, but it is for me.

If you’re familiar with the discussion on post modernity and the post modern way of thought, you’d be happy (or grieved) to see that my son apparently is the epitome of today’s generation.