Walking in Faith

On October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther changed how we look at the Christian religion forever.  He challenged the viewpoints of that time with his 95 Theses.

From a modern day perspective, one could argue that the Emerging Church is trying to look at things from a similar perspective.  Of course, I might argue that the EC is more of a post-modern viewpoint than it is a Biblical approach (let’s not go down that road quite yet).  There aren’t a considerable amount of people out there challenging modern day church viewpoints.  Why?  Because there isn’t anything worth challenging or because it has already all been challenged?  My perspective is that God will reveal to us what He wants us to know in His time.  That means that God strategically placed Martin Luther in his position, place and time so that He could use him to change the world.  That’s not to say that we don’t need a modern day Martin Luther, but I am not sure that God has anything additional to reveal to us at this time. 

We could also look at someone like John Piper, John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul as modern day Martin’s.  I am not sure that they are changing the world as much as they are helping to shape those who walk with Christ.  The same could be said about Charles Spurgeon or Jonathan Edwards.  Regardless, today is a day where I need to be intentional about praising the Lord for raising up people like the above mentioned.  He has great and mighty works to do in this world and I look forward to doing my part to help win the race.

If you want more information, Challies captured quite a few posts regarding this topic.  HT: Challies

Jason Worthen Christianity, Theology

I stumbled upon a blog today from chuchblogger that referenced an effort called The Freely Project.  The Freely Project has an article questioning the viability of open source in the church infrastructure.  As a volunteer in the I/T department for my church, I find this an interesting proposition.  Few points come to mind:

1. Cost – there is considerable upside in using Open Source software from a cost perspective.  Microsoft tends to be expensive.  Fortunately, churches can apply for a 501c3 account and purchase Microsoft software at a greatly reduced price.  I can’t speak to Apple as I have no experience purchasing or maintaining Mac environments.  Open Source certainly wins when everything is free, however.
2. Support – this is a tricky item.  OS is great from a community support perspective.  Microsoft has a considerable amount of knowledge out on the Internet regarding support of the various products.  There is also a fairly substantial knowledge base already established based on the sheer volume of people that work with and understand Microsoft.  Where Open Source struggles on this is the volunteer aspect.  Churches typically will have volunteer I/T departments (until they reach a fairly substantial size).  My experience has been that most people who are volunteers in the church are not technical people and if they are, they are not *nix gurus.  They are typically software development or engineering folks that have considerable experience using the Microsoft suite of products.  I have to give Microsoft the edge on this one.
3. Reliability - I am sure this point will be oft debated but I am going to speak from my own personal experience only.  Microsoft’s products are fairly reliable for the first few months on a new system.  It’s not until you have installed several pieces of software, tweaked this and that and un-installed some other systems that the operating system starts crawling or breaking.  Compatibility can be an issue, but not a wide spread issue.  Linux, on the other hand, seems to stay reliable for quite some time.  It is rock solid and simply doesn’t break.  Now, if you have a person who doesn’t really know what they are doing, it is easy to mess up a Linux install.  If I look at a typical church deployment (this is not to say that some uber-geeks wouldn’t do a rock solid deployment that couldn’t break), I would argue that the reliability of Microsoft is acceptable.
4. Customer Experience - end user experience is key.  If the church staff, volunteers, etc. can’t use the system, it is all for naught.  My experience is that pastor’s know enough about computers to be dangerous.  Their office staff are somewhere close but with less reservations about messing around on the computer.  End result? Lots of problems on the computer because they “tried” something.  Unpredictable results in Microsoft will quickly become reload issues within Linux.  Until the majority of the market adopts Linux as their desktop of choice at home, I think Microsoft would have to have the edge here.

This list is not exhaustive, by any means.  I would recommend Linux, hands down, if the office staff was familiar and there were willing volunteers to help manage/support the environment.  Short of that (which would be my expectations), a Microsoft deployment leveraging a 501c3 account will best serve many churches — from a new plant to mid-size.

Jason Worthen Christianity, Personal, Quiet Time, Technobabble

There is a great post (entitled Throwing Stones) over on more fire.  This is a very convicting message and I felt compelled to write about the topic myself.

I am convinced that people come to Church on Sunday and bring their best “Sunday-go-to-Church-face”.  That is not at all what we are called to do.  We should be real about what is going on in our lives.  We shouldn’t be embarrassed if we aren’t have a good quiet time, are struggling with prayer, having a hard time dealing with pornography, etc.  People seem to forget that everyone else a human as well.  We sin, we fall, we do stupid things.  Instead, we should come asking for help — for support.  The Church should be a group of like-minded people that love Christ and love one another.  If your mother or your spouse or your child came to you and told you that they were struggling with pornography, would you cast them out and past judgment on them?  No!  You would support them and do everything you could to help them with that struggle.  And so it should be within the Church.  Nothing makes me feel more real than when I get together with other Christian believers and we talk about our struggles together.

On Wednesday night, I was meeting with two other men doing a discipleship study.  As we discussed our quiet time, we all confessed that we were struggling with consistency in our quiet time as well as meaningful prayer, connecting us to God.  It was encouraging for all of us to know that others were having the same troubles.  I felt convicted, walking out of there, to do better on my quiet time — not because someone had passed judgment on me but because they supported me and made me feel cared for as well. 

I love listening to Todd Agnew and his spiritual worship music.  The song “My Jesus” is precisely the message that I feel hits the core of this topic.  God bless everyone who is reading this and may the Lord encourage you, speak directly to you and help you deal with your troubles.  Remember — you aren’t alone and you never will be!

My Jesus

Which Jesus do you follow?
Which Jesus do you serve?
If Ephesians says to imitate Christ
Then why do you look so much like the world?

Cause my Jesus bled and died
He spent His time with thieves and liars
He loved the poor and accosted the arrogant
So which one do you want to be?

Blessed are the poor in spirit
Or do we pray to be blessed with the wealth of this land
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness
Or do we ache for another taste of this world of shifting sand

Cause my Jesus bled and died for my sins
He spent His time with thieves and sluts and liars
He loved the poor and accosted the rich
So which one do you want to be?

Who is this that you follow
This picture of the American dream
If Jesus was here would you walk right by on the other side or fall down and worship at His holy feet

Pretty blue eyes and curly brown hair and a clear complexion
Is how you see Him as He dies for Your sins
But the Word says He was battered and scarred
Or did you miss that part
Sometimes I doubt we’d recognize Him

Cause my Jesus bled and died
He spent His time with thieves and the least of these
He loved the poor and accosted the comfortable
So which one do you want to be?

Cause my Jesus would never be accepted in my church
The blood and dirt on His feet might stain the carpet
But He reaches for the hurting and despised the proud
I think He’d prefer Beale St. to the stained glass crowd
And I know that He can hear me if I cry out loud

I want to be like my Jesus!
I want to be like my Jesus!

Not a posterchild for American prosperity, but like my Jesus
You see I’m tired of living for success and popularity
I want to be like my Jesus but I’m not sure what that means to be like You Jesus
Cause You said to live like You, love like You but then You died for me
Can I be like You Jesus?
I want to be like my Jesus

Jason Worthen Christianity

Seems to me that Google may be experiencing some stability issues. Haven’t seen that in awhile. Maybe they forgot to pay the data center bill?

Jason Worthen Technobabble

If you haven’t realized already, I have taken a change of “tactics” in my blog.  I used to blog my quiet time/Bible study.  I am going to go for a new approach.  I don’t think I am being open and honest with myself nor do I feel like I am being direct with God as I blog my QT.  Instead of bringing technology into everything, I have decided to write my quiet times down and try a more “human” approach.  I am thinking about what I want to do with this blog and what value I can provide here, if any.  I sincerely appreciate the folks who have written, commented, etc.  I do this as accountability and for others to make sure my theology is accurate and sound. 

Thanks for the support and the kind words.  I will be back soon with a new master plan!

Jason Worthen Christianity, Personal