Shane Ash

• Yesterday at nbc we tackled the age-old conversation concerning how we discern the will of God. Proverbs gives us a clear understanding of how to commit, plan, work, listen and adjust when trying to make decisions in our lives. The Christ-like life is one lived out in full cooperation with the mission of God, seeking to aid his set purpose of redemption while honoring our freedom of will by choosing his ways.
• In my prayer and reflection time over the past hour I cannot escape some of the ideas and dreams our leadership team is discussing together right now. I believe God is clearly calling us to a deeper mission, one focused on taking seriously his asking of us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. I am curious to see what God does next as he directs our paths.
• It is old news now, but I am still really happy about the serve week lived out by our teens and sponsors. Read about it here. This kind of teaching and living of the gospel is transformative. When we allow our hands and feet to be Christ’s hands and feet…it has the power to change everything. If this is a picture of the future of the church…then we are in great shape.
• Today I discovered this vision. I have been dreaming about and working on a similar project for here in Lee’s Summit. Stay tuned because I am certain you will be invited to participate.
• Yesterday while driving the family home, our dandy minivan decided to quit running properly…and in my attempt to limp it home in its broken state…we narrowly escaped catching it on fire. It is never a good thing when you park, jump from the van, and run to get a water hose. I am a proud member of the APF (already paid for) car club…but it’s these days that makes me wonder the real cost of owning two vehicles with 375,000+ combined miles on them.
• I am challenged by these words from todays reading out of My Utmost for his Highest:

If Our Lord insisted upon obedience He would become a taskmaster, and He would cease to have any authority. He never insists on obedience, but when we do see Him we obey Him instantly, He is easily Lord, and we live in adoration of Him from morning till night. The revelation of my growth in grace is the way in which I look upon obedience. We have to rescue the word “obedience” from the mire. Obedience is only possible between equals; it is the relationship between father and son, not between master and servant. “I and My Father are one.” “Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered.” The Son’s obedience was as Redeemer, because He was Son, not in order to be Son.

• The fog in my head is beginning to lift. I have spent several weeks in a spiritual confusion, trying to determine what is happening around me and in my own life…but clarity is settling in. This is what I know to be true…God wants to do great things, right here in Lee’s Summit, MO…but he will not force his will…he will patiently call and move upon others until someone will respond. If we want God to move within our community, we must be willing to be obedient to his ways…and his ways are often not our ways…(more on that thought later).
• Now that the world-cup has been played…we can finally look forward to some real football.
• Last week our b.r.i.c. teens modeled the way of living out Christ-likeness. It gives me great confidence and hope that the gospel is producing fruit in their lives. They get it…and they are living it.
• The events happening in Uganda right now remind me to spend extra time praying for my friend and a guy who clearly gets it… Praying for you and your teams today Matt.
• Yesterday we started our summer teaching series out of Proverbs. In this first week of overview we talked about the wisdom of wisdom. Throughout wisdom literature in the bible there is an overarching theme of humanity trying to gain understanding (through discernment = seeking the mind of God) for how to live and understand the struggles in life (the book of Job is a great example of seeking to understand the ways of God in the midst of suffering and pain). Over the next several weeks we will be approaching several subjects addressed in the book of Proverbs. Each extremely challenging to our lives as we measure our current decisions against the wisdom of God.
• Someone has to make a movie about the barefoot bandit…what an incredible story.
• If you want to know where I am living these days…here are three books you need to read: The Irresistible Revolution. Crazy Love. The Hole in Our Gospel.
• Perhaps the reason for the fog beginning to lift is the truth that I am beginning to own. For several months I have been afraid to speak…handicapped by my selfish people-pleasing tendencies and fearing the criticism of those whom I desire to like me. But I am finally accepting that pure obedience is more important than diluted self-worth. Ironically, the freedom to speak is granted from the willingness to listen to others…
• If you haven’t heard…LeaderCommunity is July 25th….be there or be square.
• This week…live in the grace, peace, and truth of a God who cares, loves, and is at work in this world!!!

I was reminded of this old hymn today. I remember stumbling down the dorm stairs, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and finding a back-row seat in a 7AM church history class taught by Larry Smith during my undergraduate days. Just as I was settling back into a sleep deprived, note-taking posture…professor Smith would begin loudly singing this old Charles Wesley hymn. (I also remember having to memorize these words for the final exam of his class.)

These words, this principle, is rooted deeply in my life. I want (desperately) for God’s Spirit to continue to soften me, make me sensitive to the selfish wanderings of life…to help me quickly recognize any wrong doings. Like CW, I recognize the mountain of selfishness that we all have to work through…and in the ups and downs of that journey…may we lean on the grace provide through Christ.

I want a principle within
Of watchful, godly fear,
A sensibility of sin,
A pain to feel it near.
I want the first approach to feel
Of pride or wrong desire,
To catch the wand’ring of my will,
And quench the kindling fire.

From Thee that I no more may part,
No more Thy goodness grieve,
The filial awe, the fleshly heart,
The tender conscience, give.
Quick as the apple of an eye,
O God, my conscience make;
Awake my soul when sin is nigh,
And keep it still awake.

Almighty God of truth and love,
To me Thy pow’r impart;
The mountain from my soul remove,
The hardness from my heart.
Oh, may the least omission pain
My reawakened soul,
And drive me to that blood again,
Which makes the wounded whole.

At New Beginnings Church, we talk a lot about being a community devoted to living out Christ-likeness. This Christ-likeness is reflected in two areas of our lives: our character (both visible and invisible) and our mission. I often preach about the mission part of this Christ-likeness…about how we are commissioned to be a sent people.  I love this quote from Alan Hirsch:

Missional represents a significant shift in the way we think about the church. As the people of a missionary God, we ought to engage the world the same way he does—by going out rather than just reaching out. To obstruct this movement is to block God’s purposes in and through his people. When the church is in mission, it is the true church.

But equally there is also the character part of Christ-likeness (I love our missional and holy character roots of the Church of the Nazarene…and I firmly believe God is actively stirring up generations  and re-emphasizing the equal balance of character AND mission). Personal character matters. How we behave ethically and morally matters. The Christian lives we live today must match our final goal for which we have been made and redeemed.  The pursuit of Christ-likeness in our character must continually be our wholehearted desire.

Over and over again the Bible calls for a revolution – a transformation of character that takes us past our present pursuits of sex, money, and power and into a pattern of living that reflects God (Christ-likeness). Galatians 5 helps me understand this pattern of living:

^16-18My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

^19-21It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.

^22-23But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

^23-24Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

^25-26Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.  - The Message.

This Christ-likeness of character (holiness) is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. And it is somewhat measurable by the fruits mentioned in vs. 22-23…affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity, compassion, love for others, humility, self-control…and also contrasted with the actions listed in 19-21.

A group of people devoted to living out this Christ-likeness would be a living, breathing, picture of the Kingdom of God here on earth.

The Church is called to be that expression…to live out Christ-likeness as a present expression of the Kingdom of God.

May it be so.

A few days ago someone sent me the link to this video. I couldn’t help but realize how well it describes our recent efforts at nbc with our Easter egg hunts and vbs (starting tomorrow!). By thinking missionally and biblically,  we find our spirit-filled-selves responding out of love-filled hearts and obedience to the command of Christ to GO.

If I am reading the moving winds of God’s leadership right, there is a massive shift developing within the churches of today. God is calling his Church back to his mission…back into the stream of relevance for his purposes.

As I preached this past Sunday, I confessed to the church that God has been stirring within me, bringing me back to a place of Christ-centered passion for his kingdom. If our patented theologies don’t cause us to move (salt and light) into the darkness of the world around us…then I think we have missed the point of the message of Jesus…incarnate, Immanuel, empowering Spirit…

I am on a new warpath…literally…a spiritual battle of bringing light into the darkness of pride, greed, lust, lies, brokenness, poverty, the forgotten, the lonely, the sin-filled, the sick…

Gooooyeeee!