Now that I have your attention…

First of all, because this is such a hot-button topic, I will lay out several items. 1) I have a close family member who is gay, and who has been in several monogamous relationships, including at least one that she considered to be “marriage” before this was even a dream in the heart of legislators. I love her dearly; she is important to me, and I have no intention of causing her heartache. This is ultimately an issue between her and the Lord. 2) Having attended eight years of art school and being in the art-making business for over ten years, I have had friendships, some very close, with several peers that self-identify as gay or lesbian. Some are still following that lifestyle; some are not. Not all that have left it have done so because of spiritual conviction. I believe firmly in taking people at face value, protecting their dignity and loving them unconditionally. I have never, and will never, shun or attack someone because of their sexual orientation. 3) I am intentionally not posting this on my facebook or twitter because I don’t believe that a one-liner world is the place to have an intelligent discussion about this. Because a blog from a teeny church in New Jersey is. Ha ha. 4) Be it ever so unpopular, I know Whom I have believed, and believe that His Word is unchanging, true for all time, and I am always seeking to become more literate in the Biblical narrative and underlying meaning as a whole. I am committed to Jesus Christ, and I believe His is the way of Truth and Love.

Now. I’ve been very troubled by the growing wave of believers in Christ that are willing to go along with the movement to legalize same-sex marriage. Somehow we have believed the age old half-truth about God being a God of love and acceptance. “Isn’t God a God of love?” we hear the pundits say (most recently, Brian Lehrer from WNYC in his completely irresponsible and sensational coverage of the NY situation). And then a well-meaning person on the other side will say, “Well, that’s the way marriage has always been.” Then Brian will invoke the example of slavery in the Bible. And the whole argument goes down the tubes. Read the rest of this entry »

Time was, when the pastorate was something that fine, respectable families sent their children off to do; it was a mark of honor on the family to say that their child was becoming a priest or pastor. Maybe that had to do with the rigorous study involved; kind of like having a “My Child is an Honor Student at XYZ School” bumper sticker. (And if I had a bumper sticker, it’d probably be the “My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student” one. OK, well, I digress.) My point is that I think those days are over. The days of ministry as a symbol of respectability and achievement, and yes, of power, are being replaced by a new paradigm. It’s one we’ve heard of before, but I believe that the rubber is about to hit the road. These are the days of servant leadership.

When I say this, take it with a huge grain of salt–try to forget the messenger for a minute. I’m so at the beginning stages of this, that it’s only 1% past theory for me. But it’s something that God is pressing home. Read the rest of this entry »

The Five Fold Ministry: Individuals, part of a whole.

“The seasons of our ministries is over. It’s the hour of Christ and the corporate manifestation of Him in us.” –Allen Hood

When I had been a Christian for just a few months, I was sitting on a greyhound bus, and the Lord spoke to me as clear as day: “Denominations are not going to matter. People are going to unite under the banner of Christ.” I understood that to mean that denominations would still exist, but that people would not define themselves by them as they had in the past. And I can tell you–I wonder if you agree–that since I became a Christ-follower 15 years ago, that is most definitely true. I think that happens when people meet the Man first, and not just his messengers. He’s irresistible–a huge cornerstone–to fall upon or be crushed by. And I think that when we meet Him, we see less and less of ourselves, while at the same time he makes us more and more who we are.

The Five Fold Ministry

God has been bringing the “five-fold ministry” to my mind, and I’m going to post a couple of entries about it. Ephesians 4 says that when Christ ascended, he gave some gifts to people: the gifts to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Some people may have more than one of these–and it’s possible that some may have none of these. I don’t think this list is exhaustive, but it has an important purpose, which I’ll discuss in part 2. In any case, I believe that the Lord is awakening and honing people; awakening them to their callings and mandates, because a time is coming, yea, is already here, when we are going to need to know exactly which direction to move in; which area to put our energies in. Read the rest of this entry »

The most beautiful Crucifixion, IHOP Prayer Room.

Well, I’ve been back from KC for a few days now, but as April and May are busy ones for us, I’m catching up on my promised IHOP entries from a Panera Bread in Perrysburg, Ohio. I think I may blog about the ARC conference that begins today in Toledo, so stay tuned for that.

But to tie it all up with regards to my IHOP trip, I wanted to share perhaps the coolest encounter I had. It was on the airplane coming home.

Read the rest of this entry »

Global Prayer Room.

I apologize for not posting an entry last night; I was out with the Forerunner Street Evangelism team in the Plaza section of Kansas City. This was the first time I’d done anything like this. It was pretty audacious, even for me. :) There were about ten of us who went out to simply bring the good news to folks that might never darken the door of a church. We split into teams of two, and I was paired with a young man named Nathan. He had done a lot more of this than I had (which was none), so I told him that I was just going to follow his lead.

The Plaza is a shopping disctrict of about six or so square blocks of upscale shops (Brooks Brothers, Anthropologie, etc.) and restaurants. Being Friday night, lots of people were out on the town, dressed up pretty fancy, and no one in a big hurry. Nathan and I had some tracts and some flyers for an upcoming presentation here at IHOP by a man named Bob Weis, who actually had an experience of being in Hell for 23 minutes. (I’ve heard the recording; it’s quite compelling.) We had a couple of brush-offs, but nothing like you’d experience in NYC. One woman was kind of hostile and had made up her mind that she “did not want to hear anything about Jesus.” (Ask my mom; she said the same thing to me once, only not that civilly.)

Maybe two months ago now, I had been listening to a teaching on prophetic evangelism by Hal Lindhart, who is the head of the evangelism department here. He said something that stuck with me: that we must not despise a particular method of evangelism just because we think, or have heard, that it doesn’t “work” or that it’s distasteful or cheesy. That hit me so hard and really humbled me. I think we can have a really superior attitude toward certain forms of evangelism. Come on, haven’t YOU made fun of Chick Tracts? I have. But last night I was givin’ ‘em out–and you know what, people asked us for them.

Here’s a little synopsis of some of the folks we spoke to: Read the rest of this entry »

IHOP Prayer Room

This morning I went to the Forerunner Evangelism Institute’s weekly “open house”. It was really sweet; about 30 or so people in the room with very simple, unpolished worship, prophetic prayer (the woman praying for me had a picture of me with a spear that I was going to throw a long way, with a message on the end of it), and a message by David Vagnoni (sp) on preaching repentance. Wow. Fantastic.

What I realized through this is that I’ve been preaching half a gospel. I’ve gotten pretty decent at the “God loves you” part when I’m speaking to the lost. The problem is that it leaves them with, at best, a warm fuzzy feeling about God, and perpetuates the belief, which is actually NOT true, but most people believe, that God forgives everyone (especially if they, whoa, say “sorry!”)–in fact, it simply cements the belief that what people call “grace” is more like an umbrella under which people have license to do whatever they want. What we need to be calling to is the flip-side of the “faith” coin: Repentance. Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry, it's going to be all camera phone, folks.

Welcome to those of you who haven’t visited my blog before. Esther’s is a place for discussion about women and faith. Anyone’s welcome to read and comment (comments are moderated). Just as a refresher, Esther’s is based on the story in the Book of Esther (in the Bible), about a common girl from a barely tolerated people group who wound up becoming a queen. In the process of her preparation to meet the king of Persia, who wanted to choose a new queen, she was part of a harem of women all undergoing a year of intense beauty treatments and training in courtly life. We imagine it must have had its perks, but that daily life must have been as mundane as ours in a certain sense. We also imagine that lots of talk went on about, well, being women, about spiritual matters, and what they observed in the world around them. That’s the essence of the blog as well. By way of reminder, also, you are welcome to submit articles for consideration. I’m not the only blogger on the column. The most valuable thing, though is the discussion that happens in the comments area. So go ahead–join us! (If you’re shy, you can write in “anonymous”.)

Well, I’m beginning a 4 or 5 part daily series blogging my trip here in Kansas City at IHOP–Prayer, not Pancakes. :) Read the rest of this entry »

Jacob's Dream

Psalm 91:1 He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
The “secret place of the Most High” spoken of in Psalm 91 is the place where God meets with man.
Recently I was directed in a book I was reading to look at the usage of the word “place” in Gen. 28:10-19, and based on that passage to look at what might be the characteristics of the “place” where God meets with man.
The passage deals with Jacob and God. We first hear of this man Jacob in Genesis 25. Jacob is the son of Isaac who is the son of Abraham. Often in the OT we see God referred to as “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”.

Abraham, a picture of the Fatherhood of God.

Isaac, a picture of the Son of God, Jesus.

And Jacob, a picture of man. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve recently started back in web design, after a hiatus based on the fact that I’d rather be illustrating. In researching some current design issues, I came across this great blog entry that I thought would be of interest to all working mothers, and anyone pondering issues of women’s equality and gender roles. (And for the designers here at Lamb, a great blog in general!)

Design Observer article by Michael Beirut

It is very interesting to me, because it states the obvious, as much as we would like it to be different: That the reason there are so few female “superstars” in the design world is because of the choice of many female designers to leave the field for a time, or at least slow down their self-promotion, to focus on raising families.

The glass ceiling is a very real thing, i believe, but I do believe it is true that family vs. career is often an either-or thing for women.

As always, I invite your comments.