Archive for February, 2009
Sushi vs. Church
Feb 27th
I love sushi. I love sushi so much that you might hear me say I heart sushi. If you know me, I am not metro enough to say I heart anything. I grew up in the land of longhorns and I would rather have sushi than steak. The best sushi I have had came from Coast. Coast is an extremely trendy spot. If you are ever in the Chicagoland area, make reservations, put on your best duds, and forget about the Dave Ramsey envelope system.
Sushi in itself has become a trend. Partaking at a sushi bar brings the hip level up a few notches. The few times that I have been to Coast have made me realize this is a place to be seen. You valet your car, you need reservations, and you BYOB. No Coors Light here. To fit in, you better have a fancy labeled bottle of wine.
I’m weird so I decided to compare sushi to the church. Now, you probably see the same similarities as I do. Maybe not. Church has become trendy. Church has become a place to be seen. The church is full of metros. I do NOT believe there is absolutely anything wrong with this. I believe others would disagree.
As I was looking at the reviews the customers of Coast have left, I wished that people would do the same with churches. Sure, this would increase the population of church hoppers but who cares about those people anyway. I guess Jesus does but He is better than I. Here are few comments about Coast that I bet the church, as a whole, would get as well.
4 Stars – Best Sushi in town!
5 Stars – Great f*%$ing sushi!
5 Stars – There is always a crowd swarming
2 Stars – Rather Disappointed
1 Stars – Unimpressed
3 Stars – Customer service is bringin’ em DOWN
4 Stars – nice food but a little too trendy crowd
How does your church rank? Would you accept criticism? Somebody give people the stage to rate their church! Someone create a Hot or Not for the church. The church doesn’t need this for bragging rights but for improvement. If people have the ability to anonymously rate their church, they will be truthful. The catch to the Hot or Not Church Edition, is that only the comments below 5 will be revealed.
Coast doesn’t care what it’s employees think. Coast cares about what it’s customers think. Remember, it shouldn’t matter what you think but what the unchurched thinks.
Fail
Feb 26th
Thought these three Tweets were interesting. Especially how they were back to back.
1. Don’t put my trust and hope in man. Man always fails.
2. Don’t put my trust and hope in myself. I will fail.
3. Don’t put my trust and hope in government. Government will fail.
4. If I practice righteousness I will avoid putting my trust and hope in anything BUT God. Because putting my trust and hope in anything but God, I believe, breaks a commandment.
27 Therefore, O king, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue.”
Delete
Feb 25th
Hey you Facebook addicts, check this out.
Everybody is all about being “real” these days. Keep it real. Really? I don’t use Faceook and I didn’t use Myspace. I know, I know, I am out of touch with the population. That’s why I attempt to blog. I get to call the shots on here. The majority of the people, I assume, that might stop by, know me personally. So, I have to be real.
I wish someone would do a more calculated study concerning peoples willingness to expose their Facebook page. Is the average user embarrassed by who they are? Are they afraid people will find the facts hidden within their comments false? Is it a pure attempt at gaining the most friends?
If you clicked and read the link above, you noticed the buzz about the difficulty of deleting your account. This made me think of God’s view of the world. As hard as we try we can not hide from God. We can not blend in with the rest of our network unnoticed. God sees all. Basically God is watching a rated R, or even X, lifestyle when He looks down on us. But unlike Facebook the best part about God is that he offers a quick and easy delete button.
Here is a great example of someone who was “real” and pushed the delete button. God forgives, forgets, erases your browsing history, and will even delete your cookies.
Do Work Son
Feb 24th
In the words of Big Black, “Do Work Son, Do Work.”
If you never saw Rob and Big you missed out. Big Black is hilarious. Look at this guy, how can you not smile. There is a 300lb plus dude sitting on a Ford Pinto posing. Smile. Big Black had several sayings that were outright funny. “Not on the meat son.” “Put the belly on the belly.” “Put it down.” but my favorite is “Do Work Son, Do Work.”
It would be hard to take Big seriously. But someone more famous has said these same words as well. Someone we can take seriously. Jesus was asked about the situation of a blind man. Jesus was asked, “is this man blind because he sinned or because his parents sinned?” Jesus’ response was a working mans response. He said this happened so that the Fathers work can be done.
Jesus says we have work to do but only so much time to complete it. We could argue all day about what this “work” is. But we would end up wasting some of that time that Jesus says we don’t have much of to began with. Most of our daily lives would be confined like this.
Most of us have our personal lives together. We would consider ourselves faithful. We would consider ourselves compassionate. That is when it comes to our personal lifestyle. The work that Jesus was doing was not so he would be known as the guy who cures blindness. He healed the blind man so the blind man could see and know Him. If we our honest, if we work at all, the work usually has selfish motives. Whether that be a tax break, promotion, something in return, or guilt we forget about God’s omniscience. He knows why we work.
The priorities that benefit us are checked. We forget about His work however. The work to make Him known. I feel I do not need to elaborate. You, I, we, and us all know we are selfish when we do not tell others about His love.
In the words of Jesus Christ, “Do Work Son, Do Work.”
Ultimate Forgiveness
Feb 20th
I am not as cool as I look. Or as cool as I think I am. Deep down I have a past that hides. Afraid that it is magically going to become visible, I have ran. Ran from God. Ran from my wife. Ran from friends. When I look backwards, I do not like what I see.
My last name for instance has no significance whatsoever to me. It was typed on my birth certificate but I never knew who put it their. Just the pronunciation and etymology of it alone makes no sense. Knutson. When someone asks me my name, I say “Cody”, pause, “K-n-u-t-s-o-n.” Ya, I spell my name every time. It pretty much sucks.
I don’t like where I came from but I am thankful for my history. My history has made me who I am today. I am pretty enamored with David. You know the David who beheaded a giant and wrestled with lions. I connect with his story. Although his story started with the favor of God, his life ended with him seeking forgiveness for his past.
David lived a life that every man dreams of. He had power. He had toys. Women wanted him. He had fame. He was straight ripped. I figure he could step in the octagon with Brock Lesnar and put an L on his record.
Because David had it all, at some point he looses focus. He takes his eyes off God. He becomes selfish. Basically it runs down like this, he sees, he wants, he acquires, he hides. His focus was turned to a woman. A married woman. He physically summons her. He has a moment of sex with her. She gets knocked up. David tries to hide it by arranging her husband to come back from war to sleep with Bathsheba. That didn’t work as planned. So, the easy thing to do was to kill this woman’s husband.
This story doesn’t seem far fetched to me. This is my fathers story. He contemplated and completed the same atrocious actions. Because of this, I am ashamed of my past. I got a call my third year in college stating my father was on his death bed. I had never heard or seen him since I was 2. To this day I never saw him. He died.
As a think about Davids story it features incredible forgiveness. Even though David was chosen to be the king and great hope of Israel, he fails miserably. Yet God forgives him and includes Davids name in the lineage of Jesus Christ. I should have forgiven my Dad. I could have shown him true 1 John chaper 3 love. In spite of everything thing he didn’t do for me, I should have told him about the peace and forgiveness I have found.
