"Sacrilege:" A Book And A Way of Life

Here is a little something I wrote reflecting on the church we have attended since moving to Denver (the pastor of which is the author of this book-"Sacrilege").

Beware of a movement.
It's more of a group actually, a band of people moving about as would-be Christ apprentices and God-fearers.
Be aware of their way.
They are not like so many of the ones who came before them. In exchange for judgement and condemnation, you may just receive compassion and grace from this bunch.
This tight-knit band of peace-makers can also be rabble-rousers in that they suggest a way that is considered radical, revolutionary, subversive and very much in opposition to the status quo. This is part of my warning, they will see to it that your life gets jacked up with this radical nature, but they will actually hang with you and they will share in it.
They believe in communion and community and mission to be sure, however theirs is a communion that welcomes anybody to the table; theirs is a community that is intentional, vulnerable and honest about the hurt, brokenness and despair that we all share; theirs is a mission not to convert or die, not to judge, but to be received and to receive others right exactly where they are in the questioning and the pain and the discomfort that comes with the first two-communion and community.
Beware of this group for they will trick you.
They will invite you over, with no precondition, with no reservation, with no requisite and with no test to follow.
They will listen to you and they will think of you often, in fact, they will bring your claims before their daddy, their Abba.
They will receive you and all your stuff with a grace and a love that has not oft been witnessed before in any kind of community that you have known.
They will ask your forgiveness for the transgressions of their forefathers and the ones that have proclaimed the way before them.
They will serve you.
They will wash your feet... literally.
You see their trick is to show you love and acceptance and truth and guidance when the world would not.
They may not expect anything in return, this is their folly and it is what may be baffling to you so be aware.
All of this so that one day and perhaps time and again, someone will clothe them and lead them where they will not want to go...

This should give some insight into what kind of place Adullam is and what kind of content this book is filled with; its a different kind of place, a different posture of doing "church"-widely and radically different, in fact, from probably most churches. Adullam encourages giving money away to whatever religious or secular causes outside the church that members feel led to give to instead of filling its own coffers for buildings, staff and stuff; Adullam encourages its members to sometimes not come on Sundays, i.e. instead we are to fill the streets and break bread with the hungry as an alternative sort of Sabbath; Adullam encourages all people to come to the communion table on any given Sunday who are ready to acknowledge the mercy and grace that has once and for all been poured over them. These are the types of subversive claims that Adullam is laying claim to and they are the same shared in the book that is meant for all manner of Church leaders and small study groups alike; it is perfect material for these settings as it poses serious challenges to our status quo assumptions on the whole concept of "church." For the believer and non-believer alike, this book will clear the air on sanctimonious, pious, pharisaical religiosity once and for all as it suggests becoming more like the God-man who once walked the earth and radically (sacrilegiously) challenged the religious system and elite of his time.

For more on this material and this way of life you can Check this Sacrilege Video
For study questions and group stuff you can check in HERE
Or check this blog for the actual source himself...

When Life is Like a Movie

Coming home Thursday night after a fairly mild Saint Patrick's day bar shift, I had a made-for-t.v. (or movie) type moment. I was heading up the off-ramp at our Hampden exit and at this point of the freeway, the light rail perfectly parallels vehicles getting off the freeway. Sometimes, like this time at night, you will see the light rail connecting rod flash brightly against a connecting cable intersection and it sparks quite brilliantly almost like a firework or maybe even lightning...at least out of the corner of your eye-your periphery. This is what happened Thursday night and it caused me to look over and see that not only was I traveling at the same speed as the ongoing ligh trail but I was level with it and could see right in to the cabin with all the sleepy-eyed Saint Paty's day revelers; it was a moment. It was a brief and relatively inconsequential moment but a significant one nonetheless.

I've been telling random people for sometime now of a growing sentiment of mine that I believe that I sometimes think in the form of movies; I get movie nostalgia almost where in a moment of life I will think about a particular movie and even a specific scene and I will recall it with pretty great fondness and warmth. I don't know, I suppose that's just the impression that movies have made on my psyche, but this was one of those moments with the only exception that this time I did not recall a specific movie or movie moment; instead this time the scene was the moment-it was unraveling before my eyes. And I feel that sometimes that's what life can be: a fond, nostalgic possibly romantic moment if we just stop for a second; if we wait and listen and lean in and embrace that moment as if it were our last it can become something kind of special.

This last weekend was a bit of all this with family in town, we took the time to fellowship, to eat and walk and enjoy each other and it was truly blessed. It was a gift, it was a picture and for that I am very very grateful.

Hippocrates says, "answer the question"

Tonight I performed a ritual; an age old requisite that has been around for more than a hundred years. I brushed my teeth.

I even flossed! And while the latter is more of a rare occurrence, the whole experience (if you can call it that) was somewhat eye-opening given our most recent classroom experience. Today we had a class that is required for our "global health" certificate called major diseases in global health and it was this class that suddenly addressed a new sense of awareness for me about hygiene. You see, this after rising and before laying to rest activity although somewhat subsumed by its general re-occurrence, is actually quite unique. It is unique, as it were, because there are a very numbered amount of people who are not yet "in the know" about the benefits of preserving ones teeth and protecting ones gums.

In other words there are people and children who are "out there" who do not know about brushing their teeth! Now this information had first become available to my consciousness when we traveled to Peru and the people who led the medical campaigns would stand with tribal children and show them the basics of brushing and they would explain to them just why it was so important-this odd and foreign practice of preservation. But for some reason it struck me all over again as we heard our professor lecture about the disparity between those people who do not have 5,000 to 7,000 dollars (the average amount Americans spend on health) to spare on health care and those who do. In our other global health class today we heard that of the 100 billion or so dollars that are spent on healthcare in the United states, 10% of it goes towards pharmaceuticals and plastic surgery. Thousands upon thousands with die of preventable diseases, transmittable and the like, and we will put another couple thousand towards botox.

I'm not talking about the "healthcare debate" here nor am I alluding to a political conundrum, to phrase this realization as a political debate would cheapen it in a major way. More what I am honestly asking is whether or not health is a human right? In a very real way, as I am trying to decide for myself the implications of this question. And though it means very different things in the United States from what it means in Bangladesh, Kenya and Guatemala (although I did hear on the radio this morning that the state of Mississippi currently contains the most impoverished amount of people out of all states in the Union with more than 20% of the population being poor, coincidentally they are also ranked dead last in terms of state healthcare) I am also asking us to observe the potential implications. Again, the implications are tied together with the answer to the question: do we care if others live or die. While it is true that states and cultures place value on human beings' heads, in essence, determining whether humans who are fit to carry on or whether they aren't, we, as the public, human community must answer the question. We have to answer the question because that is what comes with the territory of being alive during a time where someone, some place else is in the midst of dying.

What I am saying is that we cannot allow for 100 billion dollars of healthcare resources and funds to go to plastic surgery and superfluous pharmaceuticals. What I'm saying is that we cannot afford a lukewarm position on this one.What I am saying is that we cannot choose to halfway advocate life or death for others who are in a totally preventable state of dying, we cannot choose clean water for the poor without choosing education. . .even if that education is concerned with brushing ones teeth.

Answer the Question.