Missional Heart

A first of, what I hope, many

On sorry & redemption...

Ephesians 1:7-8...

Sorry and a repentant spirit are not enough for forgiveness of sin.
There had to be a sacrifice, God had to repair the fabric of the world
to make these possible.

Forgiveness is only possible when a price has been paid, paving a way
for forgiveness and sorry to be avenues of repentance, furthuremore
the death of Christ was needed to make all redemption feasible through
emotions of guilt and wrongdoing.

Erick Bauman 863.430.1200 (cell)

Sent from my iPhone.

When is enough, enough?

Lately,

I have been thinking about my stance on gun-control policies and then also how could our generation change the ideas of how we protect ourselves and those around us.

You know gun control can be viewed two ways. As strict laws that keep honest, innocent civilians unprotected or too loose for those who are unbalanced enough to go on a gun wielding tirade.

My fear is that these occurrences (mass shootings/massacres) become commonplace in our society, like bombings in open square markets in the Middle East.

Another thought and question: Aren't these campuses state governed campuses for the most art? UTexas, VTech, N.Illinois and the scattered high school instances throughout history? Like airports and City Government buildings are heavily guarded, why not make entrances to these building and facilities the same. It might increase employment and then also defer crazed-gunman.

You know if we equipped all of the Nation's grandmothers with .36 snub-nosed revolvers then the world would be a safer place. they would regulate like no bodies business... They're protective, cautious and cuddly... They're every violent person's worst nightmare.

I'm praying for the world today, acknowledging it's pain and grievances of man's folly. Lord, reveal your will to the body to act out the love you have for humanity. Please comfort the families and lives of those affected by our misfortunes.

We have to all take responsibility for the things that happen in this world.

Happy Valentine's day...

I just wanted to say Happy Valentine's Day.

Today is a weird day, I've been thinking about how I want my wife to feel like she is a valuable person and that I want to be hers and her mine... and that eventually transitioned to my thoughts of how God pursues us.

It's odd to me that within all of us there is a need to be valued, how that doesn't make since to us until we know the value-giver and how that scripts the thoughts of how we view others. I can't seem to understand how best to communicate that to myself lately. I know that the value of who I am is stated at the crucifixion of Jesus, but it's not registering within my heart how impacting that should be on my life.

The insecurities of who I am can always be found in this disconnect within my heart... That's strange to me. Knowing this and still consistently ending up cycling through this mindset ever so often... Is it true that doubt is just as much a part of the journey to become like Christ as faith? I know that Mother Teresa suffered from these same thoughts of distance from God, but then again she didn't seem to be paralyzed by those thoughts... I am!

At the end of the day I long to be whole, complete in Him and secure in acceptance. I want to pray and be heard, spoken to in return. I desire to be a man, secure in the thought of God and in my own convictions and I think God wants me to be this man, yet I can't hear his voice for that direction. If you have any advice, comment. If you wanna pray for the same thing to be made complete to walk secure in who you are, join me. I'll commit to pray for you. I think this is something that others are constantly asking on the subway, in the mirror and in the privacy of their lives.

Let's make this Valentine's Day great and offer ourselves to be God's and He be ours.

Mandy, I want you too. I hope you'll accept a broken, searching, clingy, emotional-yet-trying-to-be-manly me as your second Valentine's... then you can have Hoover (a lazy, socially inept, snoring, farting, plastic bottle loving bulldog) as your third.

Its cold here.

This morning, 11 degrees and feels like -10. The dog gets to wear his
coat and my scarf. The actually likes it. Stay warm and classy NYC.

What I am reading & watching...

READING

This is a good book for the person that has lots to plan "for." not just do.

Never had formal seminary training for planting churches, nor did I have any formal theological training. I figured that since most of the classes that I could take would lead to me reading tons of books like this, and most of the reviews online for said classes pointed to using this book. I figured I'd take 56 weeks and digest it.

this guy is stretching me to ask questions...his highly readable book is essentially about looking at Christianity again for the first time. In that respect, it provides a valuable glimpse into the essence of Christianity for those who have left the faith because they no longer believe its doctrines and those who are trying to remain in the faith while questioning its doctrines.

This book is making me not stay afraid of my calling and shoving me out of my paralyzing insecurities of leading others.

WATCHING

My friend and partner at our missional community, Adam, turned me on to this great sitcom. It's not made any longer, which is a shame, but they are in talks about a movie... I totally am in love with the humor of this show. Michael Berra is in it and hilarious.

I'm also watching whatever is on my Netflix queue, which changes 1-2 times every week.

My bloodline, my heritage, my past...

Tonight, I had coffee with, for the first time in 5 years, the man who led me to the lord. Several things went through my mind during this brief period at St. Arbucks on 49th & 7th in Times Square.

Quickly, I am going to jot some down... please excuse the grammar and punctuation, or lack there of

Does he remember and value/appreciate the same moment in history I crossed over into a conscious decision to follow Jesus when I was 15 with only him present?-- I asked that tonight as I recounted the story I shared in our first missional community here in Manhattan last night, divulging to my new gathering my spiritual baggage... Eerie enough to say, it was this very morning that I did my typical spying/lurking on the world through my virtual window that I noticed, via FaceBook, he and his family were in town. He said he remembered exactly where we were standing in the hall that night in 1995... Those words resounded in my life's ear like a thunderous crack and my heart split and fused together in a simultaneous instant- as if completeness of all the loose particles of my heart were once again, one. Tonight, I felt like God was teaching me something beautiful about His creation, about His way... That the small, finite world we live in is interconnected. That all things are tied to the soul of an individual. An e-mail address, a phone number, a step out the door, a spoken word... that everything I do affects others. What if this thing called community were larger than we could ever imagine? What if we were to live in community with the saints, those of our future, those of our past, those who despise us, those whom wish us well or harm, not just the ones presently in or lives. **Last thought on this, I am beginning to think that each action I take is a compelling force with which the world rebounds in reaction to... That I shape the world, most, by being actionary, not reactionary to it.

Back to St. Arbucks on 49th & 7th... After sharing the past 4 years of my life over coffee and the wretched oder of one smelly guy, chowing down on a stale pastry, the topics of the Gospel, life transformation and Church Planting were the main courses. I shared our journey as a married couple from Central Florida to NYC, especially having to tell my father-in-law, who already thought I was (insert a nice way to say lazy here), that I was moving his baby girl to NYC without jobs and a place to live to start a community of grace and forgiveness, for all F-in-L knew, NYC was an awful idea and a for sure place for us to be killed, much worse than Africa's bush country. As I was painting these pictures for over coffee, I started asking questions in my heart again, is he proud of me? The million dollar question - Can he brag on me for the sake of the Gospel?

Am I appreciative of him living out his faith to be a messenger of the good news. I thinking some respects today I am even more keen to living this life of faith out more and more as I process the traditional and the heritage rich background of the church. I think this is in part to my recent decision to observe the Lenten Season, one that compels us to take a look at the darkness in our heart, which has been died for. To remember what we were to be before the resurrection... As I look at this from a fresh perspective, I am moved even more by the expression of love and commitment one has for his or her God when they share the Good News with others. Thank you, Jerry for encountering me that Sunday night in the hall of that massive building in Nashville to share with me the Good News at 15 years of age. The world is a better place and I hope that you can brag on me for the sake of the Gospel and I love you greatly for what you stand for and for who you stand for.

great video...

One classless act...

I think that when times are going really well, your character shines easily. However when everything seems to not pan out, ones character is all that is shown...

Bill Belichick,
let his show when he walked off the field before the game was finally over.

When life only becomes about your success and that impairs your ability to congratulate others in a respectfully way... you have some things to reevaluate.

also, he should have not chosen to wear the red sweatshirt and went with old faithful...

MCP gets its first comp and notices the Cursing Pastor

Yeah, we have gotten our first computer. We got a Macbook, white. We upgraded the RAM from HERE on the cheap and it works like a charm. The reason for going with the new Macbook, instead of the Macbook Pro, was portability, price, ability to run XP (our supplier database only runs on XP, now we can use one machine instead of our PB and Dell) and that they just had updated to the new Santa Rosa chip that made it be able to run 4gb of RAM, which is huge. Apple charges 800 bux to upgrade the MB from 1gb to 4gb...

Now on another topic, I spent my entire weekend minus Saturday night updating it and setting up an external hard drive to act as a server access point to house our artwork, itunes and time machine back-up utilizing our older Powerbook as a desktop convert. The itunes doesn't take up any space on either machine because the external houses the actual files, more room for artwork on the actual machine.

As I was going through the itunes and things, I thought I would see what podcasts I could so away with and I came across this... I thought it was hilarious, for all those DRISCOLL fans, you'll get a kick from the screenshot and notice right away...

Think he drops some big ones? check it out, also it's a rebuttal of the emergent church and why he doesn't "roll" with them any longer... this is not a promotion of his thoughts or words just entertainment...