Ecclesiastes 2:1-11

One of the reasons that I love Ecclesiastes so much is that it puts everything into perspective. So many times I get my hopes up about something. Sometimes those hopes are fulfilled. Other times, they are dashed. What's great about the perspective that Solomon gives is that the dude tried everything. And he learned from it. And he wrote about it. That's what's incredible to me. He goes out and tries everything there is to try to make himself happy - partying, women, drinking, work, wealth, planning, etc. But it all leads to the same meaningless existence here on earth. We're all headed to the grave no matter what we do here on earth. So the point of our lives must not be what we do here on earth, but how we plan for eternity.
And I love that he wrote all of this down. A lot of times people will get great insight from an experience, but they don't tell anybody about it. I've had close people in my life never tell me about themselves and what they've experienced and what they learned from those experiences.
That's what I get from Solomon. Live. Experience life. Keep things in perspective. And share your experiences. Help others learn. Life is best lived in community.
JM

Acts 9:36-43

If you died, would people care enough to want you back?  More than just your family, I mean generally would people in your community want you back alive?  I know the answer for me is no.  But what if I lived differently and constantly was known for my kind acts.  I bet the answer would be different.  

Obviously, that shouldn't be the desire of our lives, but it kind of shows the power of a life lived selflessly in community.  My life will have to look a lot different to get there, though.  I'm so self-absorbed.  We all are.  We don't like to take time to really know people.  To really understand.  If we help people, it's for our own personal benefit usually (a happy feeling of doing our good deed quota).  JM

Acts 8:1-3

It's easy to play for a winning team. Things are going great. It seems like no matter what you do, you win and you always go to Dairy Queen after the game.
The tough thing is when you're not winning. When you go out there and get beat up. That's when being a team is really important, and when you find out if you really are a team. Typically what happens is that everybody starts fighting and complaining. You suddenly realize how annoying someone is, or you see how someone is holding you back. Or you break up the team all together.
That's why you have to live in community. You can't go out constantly and get beat up without someone having your back. Miserable experiences become endurable experiences when you experience them together. JM

Acts 5:29-39

I love it when problems solve themselves. When other people fight your battles for you. One of the great things about surrounding yourself with a good team and living life in community is that people have your back. You have people who will stand up and defend you when you're not around or aren't in the position to defend yourself.
It's even better when the person fighting for you isn't somebody that you know all that well, but is simply someone who respects who you are or what you're about. The more we can lead lives that deserve attention and respect, the more we won't have to fight our own battles because we'll have others fighting for and with us. JM

Acts 14:32-37

We act as if God gives us things for us to enjoy. And He does. But God gives us things so that we can use them for His glory. While part of that is us enjoying them, another part is us sharing them with people who are in need. Most of the time, we think this means giving stuff to help poor people, and it does. But, shouldn't it also mean sharing meals with other people. Sharing life with them. Sharing children's clothes.
My family doesn't eat a lot. We're all fairly small people. But most of the recipes that my wife makes are made to feed like 5,000 people. So rather than us just throw out the leftovers, or eat meat loaf for 2 weeks straight, we invite people over. Tonight my wife made mostaccoli. It makes enough to literally feed 8 people. So we invited our neighbors from down the street. We didn't have to do that. They didn't need the meal. But I think God wants us to share everything we have.
The beauty of it is when you really do this, and enjoy the community that it creates, it really doesn't feel like sacrifice. JM

Acts 3:1-11

A lot of people like to bash felt-need ministry by saying that it takes away from the focus of the gospel. We can spend so long meeting people's felt needs that we never get around to meeting their real need of Jesus. But most of the time in the Bible I see the focus being on meeting felt-needs. Here Peter and John heal a guy without admonishing him to trust Jesus, or repent, or do anything else. They just said "by the power of Jesus Christ of Nazareth" and then heal the guy.
Even people that like felt-need ministry still like to make people jump through hoops in order to have their needs met. You have to show up at certain times and do certain things and meet certain requirements to get what you need. Or making it more personal "I am willing to meet your felt-need of being your friend so long as I've had a good day." If it's going to drain us, then we don't want to do it.
I think the point of living in community is that we sacrifice ourselves and any rights we have so that we get to struggle through things together. That's the beauty of it, and the difficulty of it. It's easier to go it alone, but it's not nearly as rewarding and definitely not as much fun. JM

Acts 2:42-47

This is community. The people were eating together, sharing what they had, rejoicing together, and God added to their numbers daily. I notice two things about this:
1. Community is attractive to outsiders. People want to belong. They want to connect with something larger than themselves. I think that's part of the draw of attending sporting events, concerts, helping causes, etc. When people see people living in community, they desire to be a part of it, at least on some level (certainly there are some things that people would just think are freaks).
2. The church didn't cloister itself. We've created our own little Christian subculture. You can go to a Christian gym, Christian bookstore, Christian school, Christian employer, etc. All this as well as worship in a church that is not welcoming to outsiders. But that's not how the early church did it, evidently. They went to the temple everyday (which was a Jewish temple) and lived among everybody else.
What would it look like if we really lived in community among everybody else? I think a whole lot more people would be attracted to Jesus. JM

Think Differently

It's tough to find community in suburbia. Real community. We hole ourselves up in our houses and hang out in our fenced backyards. What if we tried something different. I ran across an interesting post on ten ways to radically live for God in suburbia. While several of them seemed way too hippie for me, I think some of them are extremely doable (work less, drive less, grow food, get to know your neighbors, be outside), and some are really attractive (throw out the television) if you can convince your family.
While not all of these will work in every context, I think it is an interesting read and will make you think about how you can intentionally create community within suburbia and how you can show the love of God in your everyday life.

LA Ink

I've never seen LA Ink before. I really have no interest in the show, but I'm about to watch it. The author of one of the blogs I read is about to be on there. I've never met the guy, but I feel like I know him through his blog. It's like I'll be seeing my friend on TV. I think that's kind of what's cool about blogging. It creates a community of interaction between people to where you really do take a genuine interest in the other. Maybe that's kind of an idealist look at it, but that's how I like to think of it. JM