[Subversive Radio Podcast] The Promise of Suffering

Why does God allow suffering? If God is good, why doesn't He intervene? What does all of this have to do with the Kingdom of God?

In this podcast, Keith looks at our suffering can unleash the power of Christ in our lives, and impact the people around us.

CLOSE-UP: Why Momentum?

Watch this: In this video clip, Keith Giles explains why Momentum regional organic church conferences are the perfect opportunity to learn more about how to start a house church in your community.

I'm excited to be one of the many presenters at MOMENTUM LA on Saturday, April 5th.

This even will be a dialog-driven, interactive gathering to inspire people to start organic churches in their community, or provide resources for those who already have.

I'll be speaking on the most important topic ever: Leadership!

Other presenters include:
Ken Eastburn
Karl Vaters
Bill Faris
Matt and Christa McKirland
Bryan Cullison
and more!


Click above to watch video.


OR: WATCH HERE>

SIGNS AND WONDERS

 

 

NOTE: Originally published on Saturday, September 02, 2006 at [Subversive Underground]

SIGNS AND WONDERS

I’ve noticed a curious trend that has continued to perplex me. It’s the contemporary bent towards a desire to experience the next “Azusa Street” or “Brownsville Revival”, or “Toronto Blessing.”

Of course, these tendencies are more prevalent in certain circles, but it’s something I’ve had to deal with, or at least to observe from a distance.

My first reaction to this sort of desire to see signs and wonders displayed in the Sunday morning service is to ask, “Why?” I mean, honestly, I don’t get it. Do we seek after signs and wonders in order to put butts in the seats? I confess, my immediate guess is that many senior pastors seek after this sort of miraculous outpouring because it will bring more people to their church and increase their ministry.

Never mind that, to increase their ministry they could simply practice evangelism, and train their people to share their faith in more effective ways. If more people were coming to faith in Christ, wouldn’t that be miracle enough? Have we forgotten that salvation itself is a miracle of God too?

Perhaps the search for signs and wonders is the symptom of a lack of faith? It seems ironic, but I think it’s possible that, in some cases, the two are connected. Because the people have a weak faith life, or their walk with Jesus is getting predictable, they surmise that what is needed is a jolt of a good old-fashioned miracle on a Sunday morning. This is indicative of someone who wants a short-cut to maturity of faith. Rather than to practice the spiritual disciplines and learn to surrender to Christ on a daily basis, they would rather that God simply touch them and zap them into a greater sense of love and commitment to Himself. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

I’ve actually heard pastors cry out for God to “raise the dead” or declare that they want to see “blind eyes opened, deaf ears hear”, and what they don’t realize is that, for the dead to be raised in our midst, one of us will have to die. In order to see the miraculous cure, you have to go where the broken, the infirmed, the dying, are at. Or maybe we'll have to be the ones who suffer so that we can experience the touch of God on our lives.

Jesus experienced this same phenomenon in his ministry. As he traveled around healing people, he began to draw large crowds. True enough, the solution to a sagging attendance is the miraculous. However, Jesus did all he could to discourage this kind of growth. He saw it as an artificial growth based on superficiality. To counteract this, Jesus would ask those he healed from blindness and deafness not to tell anyone about what had happened to them, but to keep it a secret. Of course, no one can keep secret when they’ve been miraculously healed, so they did tell everyone and Jesus would end up leaving that region because the crowds would grow too large for him to operate.

Do you get that? Jesus spent his time healing people, not to draw crowds, but simply because he loved people. The Gospels tell us, time and again, that Jesus would look upon the persons in need and that he had compassion on them and healed them. His miracles were not about putting butts in the seats, or about growing his ministry. It wasn’t about spreading his own personal fame. It wasn’t about the show. It was simply about compassion.

 

And when Jesus drew a huge crowd, what did he do? He walked away. Hmm...

I sometimes wonder if the reason more churches in American aren’t experiencing the miraculous outpouring of signs and wonders is connected to their lack of compassion for the sick and the broken, the dying and the lame.

If we were all as desperate to see people made well, out of a sincere compassion for them, as we were to see God do a magic show for us, perhaps we’d see the power of God poured out again?

Maybe what we lack in our churches isn’t faith, but simple compassion for others?

If we wanted God to heal someone because we genuinely loved them as He did, and not out of a desire for personal gain, or for the entertainment factor, perhaps the Spirit of God would open up Heaven and rain down upon us all the power we needed to help people in need?

I’ve often wondered about those who have big healing ministries on television and why they never seem to walk through the cancer ward at Children’s Hospital when all the cameras are turned off and heal people for free. Why is that?

Even if we changed our hearts and began to develop a love for other people, it would be a forward step in itself, regardless of whether or not God were to do a miracle in our midst. At least we’d become a people with a heart like His, and I for one would prefer to be a follower of Jesus who had a heart like His than to be a filled with the power to heal and have a heart that is proud and self-serving.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love…if I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains…if I give all that I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” – 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

(PART 4) DISPENSATIONALISM:REFUTED

 In Part 4 of this series, Keith looks at Galatians and how Paul explained who the true Children of Abraham really are.

BELIEF AND PRACTICE

NOTE: Originally published on Tuesday, October 31, 2006 at [Subversive Underground].

BELIEF AND PRACTICE

What does Jesus mean when he says, "…whoever believes in (me) will not perish but have eternal life"? Is he talking about doctrine and theology? I doubt it. Specifically because, when he spoke these words, the New Testament had not been written yet, in fact, it was being lived out as he spoke these words, and this is my point. I believe that what Jesus was trying to communicate in John 3:16 is the importance of living out what you say you believe, not simply saying what you believe.

One way to express this is to ask yourself what it is you do each and every day of your life. I would suggest that Jesus could be paraphrased here, and in numerous other passages, as saying, "Show me what you do, how you behave, and that is what you really believe".

Again, I'm not against doctrine and this article is not in any way attempting to suggest that doctrine and theology are useless. Far from it. In fact, what I'm saying is that your doctrine and theology are a lie if you don't act out the principles contained in your doctrine and theology.

I am also not suggesting that our actions affect our salvation, which is 100% the work of Christ and his act of sacrifice upon the cross.

Dallas Willard, one of my spiritual heroes, has a great quote about this. He says, "What you really believe about Jesus is revealed by what you do when you realize that you cannot do anything (to earn your salvation*)".

So, what do you really believe about Jesus? It's revealed in the way you live your life. It's revealed in the way you treat people. It's revealed in the way you think of yourself. It's revealed in the way you behave when you think no one is looking.

If you have really confessed and believed that Jesus is Lord, then your life will reflect that reality as you submit to the rule and reign of God in your life. It will be revealed as you search the scriptures for wisdom and in the way you apply it to your everyday life. If you have confessed it and yet continue to rule your own life as you see fit, then in reality it is you in control and not Jesus, therefore, Jesus is not Lord.

There is a wonderful passage in a book called "Follow Me" by Jan David Hettinga (which I whole-heartedly recommend) where the author relates a counseling session between himself and a dear friend who is undergoing turmoil in his life. The author listen to his friend complain about his life and then challenges him about whether or not Jesus is really in charge of his life. At first this friend is angry at him for suggesting such a thing, but then the author calmly points out every event in his life where he has blatantly followed his own lusts and desires and kept Jesus out of control.

At the end of the conversation the author asks his friend, "What would your life look like if you really gave Jesus control over everything today?" His friend is quiet for a moment and then starts to say, "I guess I’d stop drinking so much and I’d have to cancel my poker night with the guys every week. I know I’d have to be a lot nicer to my wife and spend more time with my children, etc."

The author then asks his friend if he's willing to start allowing Jesus to be the Lord of his life or not.

As I've said before, one of the greatest challenges to living in the Kingdom of God is that most of us here in America have never been presented with the Gospel that Jesus preached throughout his ministry; "Repent for the Kingdom of God is near." (Matt 4:17,Luke 4:43, Mark 1:5, Matt 9:35, etc.)

The Gospel most of us have heard all our lives is the "Repeat after me" prayer and the pronouncement of instant salvation as a free gift. We never hear the "Live after me" message that Jesus taught and our lives suffer for it.

Because the part about surrendering to Christ is left out, most of us have never thought about it very much. But Jesus talked about it all the time. It's impossible to read the Gospels and to study the words of Jesus and miss the fact that he most definitely intended for his disciples to hear his words and to put them into practice.

A. W. Tozer (another of my spiritual heroes of the faith) has a great insight into this most recent neutering of the Gospel for American consumers. He says, "a notable heresy has come into being throughout evangelical Christian circles—the widely—accepted concept that we humans can choose to accept Christ only because we need Him as Savior and that we have the right to postpone our obedience to Him as Lord as long as we want to!" (From his book "I Call It Heresy")

He goes even as far as to suggest, "that salvation apart from obedience is unknown in the sacred scriptures."

I had to come to grips with this in my own life just a few years ago. After living for over two decades as a born-again Christian, licensed and ordained into the ministry of the Gospel, I came face to face with the reality that I had misunderstood the essence of the Gospel that Jesus came and died to preach. It shook me to realize that I had been trying to follow Jesus all that time without carrying my cross and dying to myself each day. The foolish thing was that Jesus specifically told us in scripture that we cannot follow him unless we take up our cross daily.

(see Luke 14:27)

I had to repent and to start over with Jesus as my Lord and my Savior. It has been a long process where Jesus patiently and lovingly reveals this truth to me over time...and I'm still learning!

The most challenging, and life-changing, part has been the daily walk with Jesus as I attempt to learn how to actually die to myself and surrender to his perfect plan for my life.

So, it is about belief, and it's also about how we practice what we believe, and that is where the real Christian life begins.

-kg

*From the book, "Subversive Interviews" available at my blog.

Part 3: DISPENSATIONALISM:REFUTED

In Part 3, Keith looks at Paul's letter to the Romans to show that God sees only one "Israel" in the Body of Christ, made up of both Jews and Gentiles.

Notes From The Edge

NOTE: Originally published on Sunday, October 08, 2006 at [Subversive Underground].

Notes From The Edge

When I pulled up and parked in front of the Deseret Bookstore, I felt a bit of fear. Not unlike the fear I imagine a covert agent must feel before he enters a building in order to gather intelligence. As I passed through the front door I felt a tingle run up my spine, as if I had just passed the hostile roadblock into the evil empire undetected. Why? Because this bookstore was unlike any other bookstore you've ever been inside.

This was a Mormon Bookstore.

I tried to act casual and browse the aisles without looking too conspicuous. The last thing I wanted was for one of the salespeople to notice me and think I needed some help finding the "Pearl Of Great Price" in a leather edition, or maybe ask me if I wanted a Joseph Smith bumper sticker for my car.

I wondered if everyone I saw inside was a Mormon or if some were, like me, just curiosity-seekers. Perhaps some of them were simply oblivious to the fact that this was a Mormon-themed store. At any rate, I was not comfortable here. No one smiled at me or noticed me. I felt like an outsider and an intruder into their little world. Which, to be fair, I was.

On a whim I had decided to explore this Mormon-themed retail store. It happened to be in the same strip mall as the pizza place where I had ordered our family dinner and while our pie was in the oven I thought it might be interesting to see how the other side lived.

The inside was not unlike any mainline Christian store you’ve ever been in. There were rows of large, hardcover books that were written by various authors that you and I have never heard of, but that the average Mormon might recognize if he or she heard the names. The titles ranged from the devotional variety to fiction. (Mormon fiction?!) I was especially puzzled and even saddened to see a large section of paintings that depicted a laughing and loving Jesus. “Wow,” I thought, “How sad to offer pictures of Jesus for sale without offering any true concept of who Jesus really is.”

I soon found my way to the music section, as I usually do wherever I go, and was amazed to see a large wall covered with Cd’s and tapes. Yes. Cassette Tapes.

Except for that Amy Grant display on one shelf, most of the musical offerings were hymns collections performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. There were some “rock” offerings too, which surprised me. Most of these were packaged like early eighties new wave projects and had names like “Elemenopee” and “Chris Savage and the Rock-Tones”. I was not too impressed. This was, after all, just a sad imitation of what mainline Christian bookstores across America have to offer.

I immediately realized that this was probably what most non-Christians would feel should they venture into one of our Christian Bookstores. I had to ponder if we in the Christian World came across as irrelevant and as derivative as our Mormon counterparts. Most of what I saw in this cult music section was a laughably pathetic rip-off of what I could purchase at my local Christian store. It had the look and feel of the real stuff but was obviously an imitation of the real thing.

It kind of made me scrutinize the whole Secular versus Christian bookstore dichotomy from a similar perspective.

I can’t help but feel a little saddened by the fact that most Christian Art (and especially Christian Music), is nothing more than a pale imitation of what the world is doing.

Just the other day some friends and I were standing around and we overhead the local Christian Radio Station blasting out of a nearby car. They were playing a remake of a popular secular song called “Love Is The Answer” but adding the words “Jesus” and “Lord” here and there to sanctify it for our righteous ears.

It made me want to puke.

Why can’t the art and music of the Christian Culture be different? Even if it were just weird for the sake of being weird, I’d prefer this to the “sounds-like” comparisons of most music and art in the Christian Marketplace today.

I once interviewed Mark Saloman from the band Stavesacre and he had an amazing insight regarding this. He noted that, “…the world creates music and art from a fleshly and vain pool of inspiration. Whereas we, the sons of God, have a unique relationship and connection to the very Creator of the entire Universe. Why shouldn’t the World be following us? Why are we the ones who are following them?”

That’s a great question.

Why are we the ones who are following them?

For over seven years I worked in the Christian Music Industry. I still have friends who are part of the CCM Machine and most of them are great, Godly people who are doing their best to change the system from within. But, sadly, at the end of the day, the Christian Music Industry is still a business and the bottom line is selling product, not ministry.

Why is it easier to copy what someone else is doing and “Christianize” it? Maybe because it’s much more difficult to take the time to submit your craft to God, allow the Holy Spirit to work through your talent to create something that may, or may not, be acceptable to the mainstream audience.

The problem is, sometimes the Truth is offensive. Sometimes the one’s most offended are the people who are supposed to be your brothers and sisters. If you’re supposed to be a “Christian Artist”, and especially if you’re trying to make a living at it, the last thing you’d ever want to do is to offend anyone.

What the world needs now is a new wave of true artists. Those who are more committed to using their talents to communicate a burning truth that sears the soul, rather than those who simply want to spread their own fame.

People like Derek Webb, Jars of Clay, Switchfoot and Over The Rhine come to mind. Artists who create what is sincere and true have more interesting things to say than those who are simply trying to sell us something.

Maybe the real problem is when we try to make a buck off of the Truth? I think maybe loving people and living out the Gospel should never get confused with commerce.

What do you think?

-kg

ROUND 4: PACIFIST FIGHT CLUB - SATURDAY, MARCH 15

THIS IS A FREE EVENT.

PACIFIST FIGHT CLUB | ROUND 4
Saturday, March 15 at BIOLA UNIVERSITY
9am to 12pm.

Our Fighters:

*Mike Izbicki - Former Naval submarine officer who read the Sermon on the Mount and is now a conscientuous objector.

*Dr. Thomas Crisp - Co-Founder of PFC and Professor of Philosophy at BIOLA.

LOCATION:
BIOLA UNIVERSITY
Mosaic Cultural Center
13800 Biola Ave.
La Mirada, CA 90639

PARKING
The gate to Lot A will open at 7am on Saturday morning. No parking pass needed. Please park at the end of Lot A, whose entrance is separate from the main entrance of Biola. The entrance is just north of the main entrance on Biola Ave.

Location is the Mosaic Cultural Center, directly across from the new Talbot East building. Look for a glass sign outside of the building.

FOR MORE INFO ABOUT PACIFIST FIGHT CLUB VISIT OUR WEBSITE>

[Subversive Radio Podcast] DISPENSATIONALISM: REFUTED (Part 2)

In this podcast we look at the Dispensationalist teaching that there is a distinction between Israel and the Church.

[Subversive Radio Podcast] DISPENSATIONALISM: REFUTED (Part 1)

Keith provides a basic history of Dispensationalism as it started in 1830 by Darby, and explores the teaching that God's land promises to the Jews remain unfulfilled.

QUESTIONS

NOTE: Originally posted on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at the [Subversive Underground].

QUESTIONS

I have learned something important about myself in the process of leading a house church that has taken me by surprise.

Over the last few years of my life I have become fascinated by the teaching style of Jesus. He told stories, he provoked thought, he invited questions and more often than not he allowed questions to go unanswered.

In my own personal life I have prayed that God would help me to be more of a teacher like Jesus who is not afraid of questions and who is able to provoke people to thought, to change and to action by his stories and by the way he allows people to figure things out for themselves without throwing out easy answers to everyone.

That's the goal. The reality is something else altogether.

I have an old poster that I took off the wall in the Art Department where I went to college. It says, "Well-formed questions are more useful than well-formed answers". I love that poster. I love the radical notion that sometimes questions are more useful than answers.

In the scriptures, Jesus was asked something like forty three questions and he only actually answered two of those questions. The others he either answered with a question of his own, or he outright refused to give an answer at all. I love that about Jesus. He was not focused so much on the answers, but he was interested mostly in helping people to think things out for themselves.

I am learning that, as much as I value this quality, I am not comfortable with it in everyday practice.

One of the things that frustrates me most about the modern Christian subculture in America is our fixation with providing answers. I hate that we have tried to reduce the Gospel into a sound bite, thus removing from it the true power it has to transform us. I hate that we often employ answer-based evangelism whether or not the people being evangelized have ever asked us the questions. I long to see more question-based forms of evangelism and communication come out of the Church and this is mostly because it brings our own need to live out the Gospel message into the light and the conversation.

Still, what I have learned about myself through our house church is that I personally am terrified of questions in a group setting. The last few weeks God has pointed out to me my annoying habit of answering each and every question raised in our house church meeting. I realize that I do this mostly out of a sense of feeling uncomfortable that someone else might answer it incorrectly, or out of a desire to display my inherent wisdom and understanding of the passage of scripture or the topic at hand.

I need help.

Just a few weeks ago this scenario played out during one of our Thursday night gatherings and I share it with you now to illustrate what I mean.

We were having a wonderful dialog about the book of Job together. Someone pointed out, brilliantly I might add, that the entire point of the book of Job is found when Job utters to God, "My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen you". Although God did not appear to Job in bodily form, he had somehow "seen" God. How was that accomplished? By the sufferings he endured Job gained a powerful perspective of the fact that God is God and that Job is not. Without the suffering he endured, Job would only have "heard of" the Glory of God, but now due to the suffering, he could say he had really "seen" God's Glory. (Job 42:4-6)

At this moment, one of our members asked, "So then, is suffering the only way to see God?" If I could travel back in time, to that moment in my den, I would wrap a roll of duct tape around the mouth of the host...which is me.

What I wouldn't give to go back in time and, instead of answering that person's question for her, had turned to the group, or back to this person and asked another question like; "I don't know. What do you think?"

Wow. That would have been one very cool conversation. But it's a conversation that we will never have now because I took the opportunity to answer this volatile question all by myself.

I repent of that. I pray that I can learn from this and next time, when someone asks a question in our group like that, I will bounce it back to them and ask them what they think the answer is.

In theory I love the idea of allowing questions to breathe. I love the idea of welcoming input and dialog, even if there is the danger that someone will arrive at the wrong answer or get distracted by some misunderstanding. In reality, I am still learning to come to grips with the idea of a living question in my presence. I am still learning how to welcome such radical inquisition into my home without asking it to first submit to my so-called wisdom.

In fact, I've written articles in the past on this very topic. I've pointed out the importance of asking questions and I've criticized those in the Church who fear the question unnecessarily. Now the whole thing has come back to bite me in the butt. I suppose that's why the Word of God is sometimes referred to as a "two-edged sword".

I hope that one day I can find the inner resolve to allow questions to flourish, to breathe, to dance in my living room without being smothered by the big, fat answer I hold behind my back. I hope that God will teach me to welcome questions and to be more comfortable with allowing people to work things out for themselves.

More and more I am learning, through our house church experience, how to live out the values and the convictions I have within, in ways that I never could have in any other way.

I suppose that in the process of making disciples, we have to admit that we are also disciples who are in the process of being made.

Peas,
Keith

[Subversive Radio Podcast] JESUS: The Prophet (Final)

Keith finishes up the series on the Olivet Discourse and Jesus' prophecy about the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem in AD 70.

In this final podcast, Keith explains the phrase "Where the carcass is, there the eagles will gather" from Matt. 24:28 and Luke 17:37.

URGENT!

NOTE: Originally published on Tuesday, November 21, 2006 at the [Subversive Underground]

DISCLAIMER: Please read the following article VERY CAREFULLY before you do anything at all. There is more going on here than meets the eye. You have been forewarned. - kg

**

URGENT
As most of us are aware, there is a new Congress in session at the moment. With this new influx of Congressmen and Senators will no doubt come a changing of the guard that will require us as Christians to be vigilant as never before.

This is why today's [SUBVERSIVE UNDERGROUND] is so critical for each of us. I'm tempted to ask everyone one of you to read what I write here and to forward this to EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK right away. (Especially if you "really" love Jesus).

But, what I'm about to tell you is SO ALARMING, it could seriously threaten Church in America forever.

There is new legislation in motion, at the earliest possible stage, which I need to let everyone know about now before it gets out of our control.

First, many of you are already aware that there are forces out there that threaten to take away the non-profit status of Christian Churches in America whenever messages of a political nature are delivered from the pulpit. As desperate as this is, there is a new development brewing now that is even worse.

There are people who want to propose legislation that would challenge the non-profit status of any Christian Church simply based on whether or not that Church actually gives a significant percentage of its funds back to the community, as most other "non-religious" non-profits are required to do.

WHAT THIS MEANS is that your church could be in danger of losing its non-profit status simply because none of the tithe money goes to help out those poor families who live around the community. EVEN IF THEY DON'T ATTEND YOUR CHURCH!

Of course, there are plenty of churches in America that do care for the poor in their community. They pass out free groceries, they provide free oil changes for single Moms, they host after-school programs for kids in the area at no-charge, etc. Churches who are already "giving back" to the community in this way and serving others the way Jesus would would have NOTHING TO FEAR!

However, if a church in the community were to spend 70%, 80%, or even 99% of its tithe on itself, it would be in danger of losing that non-profit status and would have to pay taxes JUST LIKE ALL OTHER LARGE CORPORATIONS.

This means that a church spending most of the tithe for salaries, or a new building, or the new flat-screen plasma televisions for the announcements in the nursery, or the Starbucks Coffee bar at the back of the Church, or the new carpet, etc., would have to justify their non-profit status on the basis of whether or not they were actually performing any actual "service" to the poor around them. If they couldn't demonstrate a tangible connection between their church and the community around them, their non-profit status would be revoked forever!

REGARDLESS OF THE FACT that Matthew 25 suggests that Jesus takes our concern for the outcast seriously, this attack on the non-profit status of our big, fat American churches is just NOT FAIR!

We've earned the right to collect as many hundreds of thousands of dollars as we like in the name of Jesus and it should be totally up to us how we spend that money. Especially if it's for our own needs, wants and desires.

Just because we're not really involved in the needs of the poor around us, the Church SHOULDN'T BE PUNISHED IN THIS WAY.

Regardless of the fact that the Church in America HAS THE POWER and the ECONOMIC RESOURCES necessary provide affordable housing, long-term community development, and primary health care to everyone who needs it, the US Government should NOT be the one to force this upon us through legal means. That should be left up to a Higher Power.

Even though Universal primary education would cost $8 billion a year, which is about half of what parents in the US spend annually on toys for their children, this has nothing to do with those of us who are called by the name of the One who humbled Himself and surrendered His life to demonstrate the compassion of God to the World, and especially to the least and the lost.

So, if you want to protect your church from this kind of judgement, I urge you to write to your pastors, your elders, your deacons and your church leaders and let them know how you feel about this very serious issue that faces the modern Church in America.

We, the Church in America, are dangerously close to the SIN OF SODOM!

Do you know what the Sin of Sodom is? Read Ezekiel 16: 49. (HINT: It's not what you think).

"Now this is the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were proud and did detestable things before me. Therefore, I did away with them as you have seen."

Obviously, the issue facing the Church in America today is WAY MORE SERIOUS THAN SIMPLY OUR NON-PROFIT STATUS! If the Church were to rise up and spend their money this way, THAT WOULD BE AN AWESOME THING, and yes, a lot of people would probably stop calling us hypocrites and maybe they'd take us seriously when we tell them that Jesus loves them, because we've demonstrated that just maybe we love them too.

As you may have guessed, this legislation IS TOTALLY FICITIOUS! I have made up the entire thing with the help of my good friend Jarred Rowland who first suggested the concept to me.

I couldn't resist mimicking the style of those alarmist Christian email messages we all get forwarded telling us that we must send it on to everyone we have ever known in order to prove our love for Jesus. Please, also forgive me for all the CAPITAL LETTERS I USED!

Seriously, I think if my friend Jarred were to introduce a Bill like this one to our Congress it might put a fire under our churches to wake up and realize that their Bibles are full of commands to care for the outcast, the poor, and the needy who are all around them. If nothing else, it would create an amazing open dialog in the media between the leaders of the Church, the members of the community, and the man on the street about issues of compassion, Christian charity, and the calling of Jesus to care for the poor as we would care for Him. (see Matthew 25)

Until that legislation comes to pass, I will have to resort to stunts like this to try to wake people up and realize that God's heart is for the poor and that He has taken this issue very seriously.

The truth is, the idea of their church losing its non-profit status is more likely to spur Christians to action than the fact that there are thousands of homeless, and poverty-stricken human beings suffering a few blocks from their front door.

"He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?"- GOD, speaking of King Josiah in Jeremiah 22:16

[Subversive Radio Podcast] JESUS: THE PROPHET (Part 2)

*Apologies for the abrupt ending here. Part 3 will pick up from where we left off.

[Subversive Podcast] JESUS: THE PROPHET (Part 1)

Part 1 of the new Subversive Radio Podcast Series looking at Jesus' Prophecy on the Mount of Olives, or The Olivet Discourse, and how the fulfillment took place during the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70.