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Reckless Courage

Our task today is recklessness.
For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature,
We lack a holy rage.

The recklessness that comes from the knowledge of God and humanity.
The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets . .
and when the lie rages across the face of the earth --
a holy anger about things that are wrong in the world.

To rage against the ravaging of God's earth,
and the destruction of God's world.
To rage when little children must die of hunger,
when the tables of the rich are sagging with food.
To rage at senseless killing of so many,
and against the madness of the militaries.
To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of destruction -- peace.
To rage against complacency.
To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change
human history until it conforms with the norms of the kingdom of God.

- A peom by Kaj Munk, a Danish pastor killed by the Gestapo in 1944. Cited in Exiles by Michael Frost, and The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne.

Reckless Courage

What is the task of the preacher (or the church) today?
Shall I answer: "Faith, hope and love"?
That sounds beautiful.
But I would say -- Courage.
No, even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth.

Our task today is recklessness.
For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature,
We lack a holy rage.

The recklessness that comes from the knowledge of God and humanity.
The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets . .
and when the lie rages across the face of the earth --
a holy anger about things that are wrong in the world.

To rage against the ravaging of God's earth,
and the destruction of God's world.
To rage when little children must die of hunger,
when the tables of the rich are sagging with food.
To rage at senseless killing of so many,
and against the madness of the militaries.
To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of destruction -- peace.
To rage against complacency.
To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change
human history until it conforms with the norms of the kingdom of God.

And remember the signs of the Christian church have always been --
the Lion, the Lamb, the Dove and the Fish --
but never the chameleon. Kaj Munk

Quoted in EXILES by Michael Frost pg 21

The smashing of the cream egg.

By a NZ guy, built in his flat...

The month that was...

Firstly Kevin Carroll author of the Red Runner Ball, did a shoutout about my very out of date block. You can read it here. http://kevincarrollkatalyst.com/index.php/blog/shoutout_thursday/

I was blown away, and humbled that Kevin, wrote about me. The net and social networking perplex me alot.

Some posts I wrote in the last month:

I Think I Do... @ lead2live.com

Mowing the lawns ... oh JOY! @ lead2live.com

sexy @ lead2live.com

Power companies are greedy!

There was some coverage earlier in the week about potential power shortages later this year. This from stuff:

National energy spokesman Gerry Brownlee said "things are very, very tight". "If we don't get rain in significant volume by the end of the month, going into the first week of May, we could be in considerable trouble." and "It was too early to think about a public savings campaign."

Firstly the RED line doesn't look that good. If that was sales in a business, it would be bad, wouldn't it?

Secondly, of course its too early to get the public to make savings. That would drive demand down, which would drive the price down.

It makes far better business sense to wait until there is a full on shortage, when spot prices are really high, then loss in revenue from savings, is more than offset by the increase in prices. Yeah its a hassle for their customers, but profits are stunning!

Conclusion: NZ still has some huge infrastructure issues! - Thanks Aunty Helen & Uncle Mike. Thankfully one of my family gets more out of the power companies than we pay.

Book Review: Compassionate Leadership

It was one of those books in which the title challenged my thinking more than the book itself. It was an OK read but the authors really tried to say there was more to servant leadership, that leaders needed to be compassionate. The problem is, they then use the term "Servant Leader" more often than compassionate leader, and their entire summary was what "Servant Leaders do..."

Overall it was a good summary of Servant Leadership, though not a griping read.

Uppermost in the mind of a compassionate leader is the constant quest to know and understand the will of God, and to seek His wisdom and guidance. ...

Effective leaders must be willing ti be in the state of constant learning. There is no relaxing or even plateauing.

Servant leaders are characterized by a thorough and ever expanding knowledge of God's Word. They use their biblical wisdom, and understand clearly the grace of God.

Pg 116

The challenge, if not just from the title, be a compassionate leader!

I think I do…

Imagine you’re at a wedding and the Minister asks the Groom. “Will you take Jane to be your wife?” and then the Groom responds, “I think I do”.

To that question there is only one correct answer. One of action. “I do!”

How many people do you know, that know the right thing to do? They could fix the process, eliminate the stress, mend the relationship, change the world and yet do nothing.

Doesn’t it really bug you when other people don’t take action and just complain about the problem. It is so flippin annoying.

Yes flippin I say!

The problem is not that they don’t think, but that they don’t do. Why cant they just get on and do something. Anything. Now!

Why do some people have all the knowledge I ask myself, and yet do nothing?

Why? In a John Campbell voice.

Clearly, I have decided, there are two kinds of people. “I think” people whom think and never do. And “I do” people who actually make things happen.

Two kinds of people.

And for the record “I think” people really flippin bug me!

So with that in mind which one are you?

                                                   Unfortunately …

           I am both …        and I flippin bug myself. 

Mowing the lawns ... oh JOY!

One of my earliest childhood memories is chasing my father around the lawn with my toy lawn mower. Not surprisingly this wore off in my teens when I was forced to actually mow the lawns with a crappy old lawn mower that you had to start with an electric drill.

Nowadays I actually like mowing my lawns. (You will notice I said my lawns; I probably wouldn’t enjoy mowing your lawns.)

Mowing my lawns brings some form of escapism and satisfaction. I plug in my MP3 player, zone out and get an uninterrupted hour to myself.  The satisfaction comes from completion, the finished product, and it looks good.

Over the weekend I was mowing the lawns and Jayden woke up and decided he would take his plastic lawn mower and “help” me mow the lawns.

He starts by zig zagging all over the place, bouncing around like a rabbit on steroids. At first I think it is cute and it brings a smile to my face. After a while it becomes outright dangerous as he cuts in front of me and instigates lawn mower head on collisions.

My frustration starts to set in. Not because it is genuinely dangerous but because he interrupted my routine, my thoughts, MY time!

I start to get annoyed, and at that precise moment I miss the point of life.

Jayden was having fun, enjoying life while his old man was selfish, grumpy and annoyed. The five minutes extra it took to have fun with my son, was just 5 minutes I would spend on the couch later that day.

I was reminded that I need to be joyful. To delight in everything. In all things. To make my sons day. 

Joy, afterall, is something God wants us all to have.

Strangely, the times I have the least joy seem to be the times that I am self-centered and concerned more for my problems and myself. My needs become more important that the needs of my son or my family or my friends ... or ... people!

In order to live vividly we need to take every opportunity to experience joy.

So ... What if I focused less on myself and more on bringing joy to those around me? What would happen to me if I did this? Would I experience more or less joy?