what jesus, his disciples, and rob bell have taught me about my former major-- public relations.

I started reading Movement 7 of Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis tonight.It's the last movement of his book, and so far it's talked about how God's going to restore our world. How He made it good (not perfect, mind you) and how one day He will bring heaven down to earth and THEN it will be perfect.
He talks about how Caesar Augustus, in Jesus's day, claimed to be a god. Advent was the period of 12 days leading up to Caesar's birth!! AHAHA. The guy even had people bring him offerings of frankincense and myrrh to get rid of their guilt.
And, he coined the slogan "Caesar is Lord."

Tonight I realized that Jesus and his disciples are the best Public Relation specialists in history, even before the practice of real PR began.

Think about it-- taking the most popular phrases and rituals of the day and tweaking them to fit your own campaign? GENIUS. (I know Jesus as the Messiah wasn't really a campaign, but see this thing through.)
Bell talks about how it was commonplace to claim you've been raised from the dead back then; even Caesar claimed he had been resurrected.
So the challenge then, for the disciples and for the risen Lord, was in what they did AFTER the resurrection. The claim that Jesus was the Messiah wasn't enough. They needed more than that. Christians, not the government, served the people.
And it was through THIS that they proved the love of Christ and the sacrifice He made, and the sacrifice he calls us all to make.
Daily.
They loved people. Took them in, befriended them, laughed with them and created inside jokes.
They got to know their families and their passions.
They lived.

So here's the deal. 
I sometimes forget why I serve. 
Sometimes I lose track, get burnt out, and trick myself into thinking that the fuzzy warm feeling I get inside when I spend time with someone or help someone out with some thing in some way is enough. That it's what it's all about.
But it isn't.
We serve and love and glorify His name because that's the example Jesus set.
Because He loved us so much that it's all He could do.
Paul referred to Jesus as a "firstfruit" in 1 Corinthians 15.20. Which meant that after Jesus, there would be more of us to model-- and even extend-- Jesus's love after Jesus returned to heaven.


It makes me think a lot about AU and all the people that go here. Everyone wants to make a difference. In politics, in international service, in whatever. And the alternative break program? i'm starting to spend a lot of time around Alt Break leaders in preparation for South Africa and am flabbergasted by how idealistic and passionate these people are. They feel so deeply the pain of others. Why don't all Christians feel this way? Why don't I? What went wrong?

And so these first Christians passed on the faith to the next generation who passed it on to the next generation who passed it on to the next generation until it got to...us. Here. Today. Those who follow Jesus and belong to his church. And now it's our turn. It is our turn to step up and take responsibility for who the church is going to be for a new generation. It is our turn to redefine and shape and dream it up all again.. It is our turn to rediscover the beautiful, dangerous, compelling idea that a group of people, surrendered to God and to each other, really can change the world. (Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis p164)

I just switched out of my major, Public Communication (aka Public Relations) this week.
'Cause MAN I H8-ed IT. 
But the good thing is, PR is kinda intuitive. Look at what the disciples did-- taking ownership of the "Caesar is Lord" campaign that Caesar Augustus and his minions had goin' on, and putting their own spin on it. Reclaiming pop culture. Not ignoring it and denying its existence, but instead capitalizing on its popularity and relatability and reaching people THROUGH it.
I might hate PR, but that's a durn good approach that even I can appreciate.


Two things. One, I sure am gonna look at my Advent calendar different this Christmas. IDK about you, but I never knew until now that Advent was originally the time that marked up to Caesar Augustus's birthday. I guess I didn't pay attention in Sunday School. Typical.

And two, it's time to reclaim. Together. "It is our turn to rediscover the beautiful, dangerous, compelling idea that a group of people, surrendered to God and to each other, really can change the world."

Cheers.

neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night

the rain falls
it is a hollow sound, filled with joy
i don't know how it sounds of joy
an emotion, a state of being, a whim?
but joy, it sounds

it lightnings
illuminating show for all the world to see
where do the lights come from? we wonder
electricity
friction
the flow of energy
back and forth, back and forth

the reason
the reason we live and breathe and wonder and create and are
the reason for it all
the reason we long and pine and seek and find
the reason for it all

in the seeking comes the finding
now faith is the assurance of things hoped for
the assurance of things not seen

what is it i have yet to see? it will come
am i brave enough to hope?

be still and know.



" The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deephunger meet." -Frederick Buechner

it's been a while since i looked at the stars.

i haven't posted in a while. i've been too busy counterblogging, you see.
but i read this on symphony chau's blog today, entitled THE VISION. and it really moved me. read it for yourself.

The Vision – By Pete Greig

So this guy comes up to me and says:
“What’s the vision? What’s the big idea?”
I open my mouth and words come out like this:
The vision?
The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.You see bones? I see an army.
And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn’t even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.

They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision ?

The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers choose to loose,
that they might one day win
the great ‘Well done’ of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don’t need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: “COME ON!”

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once againMystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing…
This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.The tattoo on their back boasts “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain”.

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes.
Winners. Martyrs.
Who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed?
Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays

like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive

Inside.

On the outside? They hardly care.
They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives – swap seats with the man on death row – guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.

Don’t you hear them coming?

Herald the weirdos! Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes.
They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be.
It will come to pass;
it will come easily;
it will come soon.

How do I know?

Because this is the longing of creation itself,
the groaning of the Spirit,
the very dream of God.

My tomorrow is his today.
My distant hope is his 3D.
And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great ‘Amen!’ from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

i can't stop thinking lately about prayer. about our generation, about God moving. it's been on my heart. and it's in the world aroundme. he's moving, on my campus. in my families, in the power of forgiveness, and in the pursuit of his daughters and sons.
and this poem pretty much sums it all up.