“The American govt thinks the way to beat terrorism is to kill terrorists, but this simply creates new ones. You cannot defeat mosquito-borne diseases by killing mosquitos. You have to go to the source…the swamps that breed the bugs. So with terrorism, the swamps of humiliation, poverty, shame and ignorance need to be confronted and in some way mollified.”

via Phil Baker

I took a long lunch today with several other Garnett staffers and watched “Saved!” I found it to be a hilarious, embarrassing, and moving critique of the American Evangelical Christian subculture. It was hilarious in that the Christian stereotypes are over the top, but also spot on. It was embarrassing in that I recognized myself in some of those stereotypes. I was once a judgmental Church of Christ teen who condemned all my Baptist friends to hell (Forgive me Father, I didn’t know what I was doing.). It was moving in that there were some truly tender moments in which the Christians–who were trying so hard to act as if everything in their lives was perfect–broke down and let their humanity show. It’s amazing how much better Christians come across when they act like humans. Equally powerful were the scenes in which a non-Christian acts more Christian than all the Christians around her.

If I think hard enough I could write another paragraph detailing all the things that bothered me about the movie and its message. In doing so, I would demonstrate that I had missed the point. Instead of critiquing this movie, I’m going to let it critique me.

And I’m going to go out on a limb and say that “Saved!” may just be the 2nd greatest evangelistic opportunity in the last 2000 years.

Tonight I’m teaching a class from Eph. 5:21-6:9. This Sunday I’ll preach from the same text. That means I get to address the whole “wives submit to your husbands” issue. I’ve done quite a bit of research on this passage over the years and I think what it actually “says” is not all that chauvinistic, but rather moving in the egalitarian direction, especially for something written by a Jewish male in the first century. However, there is so much cultural baggage and historic abuse associated with the word “submit” that I’m not sure we can actually hear what is being said because of the cluster of images that immediately comes to mind when we hear it.

I’m planning on using the class tonight as a sounding board that will hopefully help me shape Sunday’s message so that I can communicate my understanding of the text in a way that can be heard.

After I’ve communicated my take on a passage, I don’t mind being disagreed with. I just want to be heard first. If I don’t post within the next 48 hours, then you can assume I probably didn’t survive tonight’s class.

This post is addressed to all the worship leaders/planners and preachers out there.

This year the 4th of July lands on a Sunday. Are you going to be doing anything special in your assembly because of the holiday?

At Garnett we’re not going to do a “patriotic themed” service. At some point in the assembly we will thank God for the country we live in. We will pray that God will be with all soldiers (both ours and theirs) who have been placed in harm’s way. We will pray for wisdom for all of the world leaders. But we won’t be doing patriotic songs or be waving flags.

My feeling is that there will be ample time to do such things later on at a variety of picnics. I don’t believe a holiday like the 4th should be the focus of a worship assembly. The 4th of July is about celebrating our independence as a nation. The worship assembly is about celebrating the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The latter does not depend on the former.

Anyway, tell me how you’re handling the holiday at your church.

I’m about halfway through Stephen Spielberg’s “Taken.” Good sci-fi-aliens-are-among-us-conspiracy-fun.