My Testimony

Tonight I’ve been asked to share my testimony with our project students and staff. I am so excited. Testimony is amongst the most powerful things that the Christian wields. It is the power of Christ put on display in the life of a human being. Though I am a very conversational person, I’ve been asked to memorize a selection to give to the group. I think this is a great idea because it frees me from the need to pull out a piece of paper when I’m sharing it with someone. Anyways, here’s the basic text. Hopefully it’s pretty conversational.

I have always been the “chosen one”. I am the oldest son of my father. He is the baby of his family but the only son of his parents’ marriage. I was born and raised in the same church that my father went to all of his life. My family was one of the biggest and most well-respected of all the church. All the ladies that used to cradle me in the nursery and teach me in Sunday school tell me that I was a joy. No word of encouragement was ever withheld from me.

I quickly learned to play the part of the chosen one. After all, the benefits were amazing. I could choose to do whatever I wanted to do, so long as I was excellent at it. I could put on a smile and some nice shoes and become the pride of my parents. In reality, it wasn’t until high school, when I realized that being Tim Warnes was “kind of a big deal”, that this pride became sin. I was the #3 hitter, the valedictorian, and the right-hand man of my youth pastor. I knew that Jesus had come, died for my sins, and forgiven me. I had been taught that since childhood. But it was only then, as I entered my high school years, that the Lord entered my life and asked for all of it. If He was going to become Lord of my life, some things were going to have to change.

Thus, it was around this time of my life that God convicted me of this pride. However, I allowed the enemy a foothold. He exchanged my pride over being the best at everything for a pride of being the keenest at recognizing sin in the lives of others. I was a typical brother to my two younger sisters: annoying, boyish, and immature. Needless to say, car rides home were never fun. I was often short with them (and my mother). I was sometimes harsh with them. And I was occasionally a flat-out jerk. But God didn’t allow me to wallow in my ways for very long. He is persistent. He pursued me. He pursued my purity. He pursued righteousness for me in my relationships with my mother and sisters. It was impossible for me (Praise God!) to continue in my mistreatment of these women in my life and maintain my honesty with myself about my relationship with God. He transformed not only my feelings towards Him, but also my feelings and behavior towards them. Though it was a slow process, I can honestly say that I so much more enjoy my relationships with my mother and sisters now because of the transformation that putting Christ on the throne has wrought in my life.

In the end, I have determined that it is better to be chosen by God and then to choose Christ than to be chosen by any man.

“We love because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19

Thoughts

Ministry in the inner city is no big deal. It consists of talking to people, taking an interest in their lives, and planting seeds. In this atmosphere, rejection is easy to take. There is no need to be discouraged if someone you meet doesn’t really want to talk, or if they don’t want to talk to you about something in particular. God goes about convicting hearts, not us. It’s our job, especially in the city, simply to be his hands, or his feet, or maybe his mouthpiece. I love this commission that we’ve been given. Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all the nations.” In his book A Theology as Big as the City, Ray Bakke states: “The frontier of world mission is no longer geographically distant; it’s culturally distant but geographically right next door.” He doesn’t expect us to go and make converts or to go and convince. He commissioned us to go and share. Bakke tells us “It’s news!” The gospel that we have been commissioned to share is news, not advice! It changes everything! In as loving a way as we know how, we must share this news. Advice is not always needed, but if we withhold the news of Jesus Christ from those who do not know Him, we leave them in the dark. Even when the news is shared (the light is shined) the decision to follow Christ still has to be made. Let’s be bearers of good news. Not good advice.

Weekend #1

Friday morning I woke up in San Francisco. My family surrounded me. We hopped on a shuttle, went to the airport and they sent me on my way after a sweet family prayer session. I sat down with my man Aaron Vargas at gate 23 in SFO and then got us some spots on the plane to Vegas together. Since neither of us had finished the book we were supposed to read before project, we did that on the plane. Also, I was made confident that this summer would be a good one just because of the conversation that we had. In the end, Aaron and I got here at 3PM local time and got picked up by one of our project directors, Aaron Miatke. We rolled up to City on a Hill a little before 4 and then I jumped in a van and went on a mini-job search with Sarah, Bryan, Jessi, and Erica. We finished the day with dinner in the cafeteria and some get-to-know-yous. That night I was very encouraged by the chat that we had with most of the guys in the guys lounge. It was the first night and I feel like it was a perfect start to our summer. Got to know the guys a little better and got excited about living with them this summer.

Saturday we had an evangelism training day at Bradford Beach and then a BBQ at adjacent McKinley park. I went with one of our part time staff, Chris Chambers, and we got to talk with a couple of guys from very different situations. Jay was a middle-aged guy, raised Catholic, originally from Minnesota. He had dropped his affiliation with any sort of church or God long ago, since college at the latest. Though he wasn’t interested at this time in knowing God in a personal way, the conversation with him taught me a good deal about how to carry on a conversation with someone who is not a college student attending my university. It’s sometimes harder to establish common ground. Next we talked with Neal, a homeless man who had just that morning been released from the hospital. He too, was very fun to talk to. I learned from that conversation that the Lord will go with you, even if the initiation of the conversation may seem awkward. Wrapping up the day with another group meeting, some game time, and another couple of late-night conversations, I felt that the day was certainly one in which God was gently breaking me from my ideas about summer being anything less than I now know that it will be. I will be attacked from every angle. I will be stretched in many ways. I will be totally inept apart from the power of the Holy Spirit working in me.

Sunday, we went to Berean Family Worship Center and really enjoyed the service there. Never before had I, as a guest, felt so loved by a church body. They knew the word, they taught the word, they sang and proclaimed the word. And even in the small things, the love of God was put into action. I most appreciated the purposeful speech of both the pastor and the congregation(in their responses to his spoken word). I heard no uhms, no uhhhs; only Amens, Praise the Lords and Hallelujahs. We had a debrief after church and before lunch and our group had genuinely enjoyed meeting with the Lord in their building with their congregation. It was a joy to worship alongside some of our ministry partners and to simply observe the way that they served and loved the Lord. At the next meeting Jeff shared with us his heart for the city of Milwaukee by relating it to the story of Nehemiah and Jerusalem. You could tell that this was a man who was moved with a deep compassion for the people of his city. My level of excitement for this summer continues to increase. Also though, God showed me a peace that transcends understanding today. I know that I am free to do any sort of ministry this summer an d that I do not have to worry about my effectiveness, my plans, my desires. God will handle the outcome; all I have to do is concern myself with His business: the business of redeeming souls.

Sunday at Three

I talked with one of my followers the other day (LOL, I have two right now) and he encouraged me to actually put something new on my blog. So, I went home that night after Halo-ing it up with him and the guys and, of course, I was stoked about my mountain cookies. Mountain cookies are graham crackers(thank you mom) with peanut butter and chocolate frosting(thank you grandma) and I am in fact eating them again as I stay up late to write this tonight. That is where the picture came from. Anyways, I walked into my house, flipped the TV on with the remote and tossed it on the couch so I could have both hands free to work on the mountain cookies. I soon realized that the television was not tuned to either of the ESPN's or the Fox Sports channels that seem to burned into the pixels on our television. Instead, it was a rerun talk show that was being broadcast that caught my attention.

The host had just finished the show's introduction and he entered the commercial break with something to this effect: "When you come back, we'll determine whether your church is serving God, or serving the government." I was shocked that someone had found the manual. I was also shocked that someone would be so audacious as to claim the knowledge to solve this problem for everyone if we would only come back after the commercial break. I finished my mountain cookies, flipped to and through the ESPN's and the FSN's and curiously made my way back to the talk show.

At this point they had introduced a couple of guests and were engaged in discussion about their topic. I quickly realized though, that they were not talking about churches actually serving "God" or "the government", but rather were using these terms to mean "conservative political agenda" and "liberal political agenda". Somehow, despite having the deans of two seminaries on the show, the three of them had started to discuss politics and how "the liberals" had pulled the wool over "our/your" eyes with the recent jobs bill.

I promise this is not a political rant. The most appalling parts came next. One of the deans noted that the talk show host had made a great description of the Christian faith as being a "personal" acknowledgement of sins and our forgiveness from them or something like that. I don't remember the exact words there, but what's important is the theological jump that was made next. The guy proceeded to say that the "social gospel" was not the "true gospel", and that some churches were being deceived into thinking that these liberal social policies were good ones.

He had taken the love out of Christ's sacrifice and turned it into a purely mental and spiritual event that was necessary for salvation.

My mind quickly tired of this political talk and I don't want to continue with this recounting of it for you any longer. Rather, I would like to highlight some key issues I had with what was said that I thought were noteworthy:

1) The separation of church and state was abused in the worst way; these men were reducing churches to social hotspots where people came to be informed about social and political issues.

2)These Christian men were throwing half of America(which is part of God's creation) under the political bus.

3)The notion that Christianity is more about knowing than about doing, about living, was quietly assumed.

[I'm picking this up a whole missions trip (to the inner city of Milwaukee:) and almost an entire summer later, so some things might seem choppy, but I've still got some things to say, so here goes.]

When it comes down to it, the easiest way to abuse the separation of church and state is to hold a conversation based on a question which pits them against one another (i.e. Is your church serving God or the government?) Christ calls us to render to Ceasar what is Ceasar's. Paul also tells us "who are mature" to ask God for clarity on issues that we disagree upon. He goes further. In the same passage (Philippians 3) he calls those who were demanding that circumcision be a church mandate (a sociopolitical issue) "dogs" and says that their "destiny is destruction". Healthy separation of church and state (as it concerns the follower of Christ who is interested in clinging closer to Him than anything else) begins by forgoing all things for the sake of knowing Christ. And there is not even a promise of other things that comes in this one. Paul received suffering and further persecution. But he knew something that we seem to be unaware of at times today: "our citizenship is in heaven." The way to measure your own (you can measure your church's next) devotion to Jesus is by the things that you have given up to know Him and to have His righteousness and His power transferred to your account. Stop worrying about this lowly things. "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:18

It must be one of the most common and dangerous errors that a politically inclined believer can make today: to quickly discard half of America's population as morally unfit to have any say in the leadership of this country. There are a couple of ways to do this without reservation. You can either group "second things" with "first things" or you can forget to correctly analyze the situation. If the first things are the convictions (based in Scripture for the believer) then the second things are the policies or the methods. All to often we commit the very exclusive error of grouping our proposed policies with our convictions and fighting for them as if they were Biblical truths. Brennan Manning talks about this in his book The Ragamuffin Gospel:

"The deadening spirit of hypocrisy lives on in prelates and politicians who want to look good but not be good; it lives on in people who prefer to surrender control of their souls to rules rather than run the risk of living in union with Jesus...The way we are with each other is the truest test of our faith. How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car."

Standing on our convictions will lead us to action. Standing on our politics will imprison us to them. If you are going to be chained to something; if you are going to belong to someone or something, let it be Jesus! He's the only one who's going to bring about life in our churches and our cities and our nation anyways.

And the last fallacy that this conversation demonstrated disgust me the most. It relegates Christianity to a personal knowledge of the right way. Jesus said He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We are not Christians unless we know the Truth, we walk the Way, and live the Life. It is not fair for us to hide the truth in our hearts; we must share it with others. In 2 Corinthians 4:13 Paul tells us that it is with the same spirit of faith that we "believe and therefore speak." We must never get the idea that our Christianity is a "personal thing"; that it is meant for us to believe and be encouraged by. It transforms us. Rather He transforms us and brings us into glory with Himself. This is not something that we can keep inside. Nor is it something that is most accurately and prominently displayed with our votes. Rather, it is shown and known in our love for one another. As long as your political convictions come in somewhere behind your relationship with Jesus in the battle for your heart and life, it doesn't matter what they are. "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after the orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

Justification

People are jerks. Really, we are. If what I write seems to being a survey of what I see around me, know that I can see it so clearly only because it is also reflected in me.

Architecture: Students have become more arrogant than professors. We search for justification in anything.

Francis Nolan taught me a thing or two about justification.

I think a good deal of our perceived need to justify ourselves comes out of our complete lack of faith in forgiveness, both in it's probability and it's power.

There are three noticeable trends that hint at arrogance and over-justification:

1. Tone of Voice
2. Avoiding the Question(when it comes from someone who deserves an answer)
3. Complete Separation of Self from Work Input (when work is lacking in effort)

Oddly enough, I see that the justification that Christ gives contradicts our justifications on two of these levels and fulfills to the extreme our attempt at justification on the other. The justification that Christ gives renders us speechless and forces us to admit our need, but, it also separates us from what we've done and elevates us to Him by what He's done.

This is really raw because it was a draft I wrote in April. It's my outline actually. But I just reread it cause I was intending on finishing it, and I think its fine as is. It's not polished, but if I tried to say any more I would just muddy the water. In short, Christ's justification is infinitely better than our attempts. It even covers the sin that is inherent in our own efforts to justify ourselves by these methods.

My Baccalaureate Speech

We have made many mistakes. We may even have some regrets. More numerous probably than is healthy though, are our assumptions about life and the best way to live it. We are always striving to live life perfectly, but we can never seem to pull it off. It’s not that we chose to make a certain amount of mistakes, or that we wanted to hurt, judge, or mistreat others, we just lived life and that’s how it goes. Nobody’s perfect. In fact, being perfect is something that is impossible by it’s very definition. Perfection is defined as an instance of excellence, and, seeing as we live in the present, taking life one day at a time, we cannot be excellent at every moment; it would exhaust us completely. Imperfection is something everybody has to deal with, but nobody would choose, sort of like being a freshman. Maturity means dealing with imperfection. It really doesn’t matter how many times you have or will fail, what matters is that you learn from each experience. When you are faced with a crisis or a trial that would seem insurmountable, take some time to ask yourself these important questions: What will I change in myself after going through this? How will I change the way I live? Why will I even change in the first place?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, I don’t know why, or even if, you will change, but I do know this. You won’t change because of me. You won’t change because of this speech. You definitely won’t change when you receive your diploma. You all know John Mayer, right. I think most of us know the lyrics to his song, Waiting on the World to Change. Well, if you’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting on the world to change, you better get up. It won’t change for you anytime soon. Never has, never will. There never will be a fair fighting ground. You all know the way the world works. You try, you work, you sweat, you bleed, you get nothing in return. Loyalty, integrity, honesty; they’re often viewed as weaknesses, characteristics of someone who can be manipulated. We are left, really, with only one option. I think that Gandhi said it well when he said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” But I like best Eugene Peterson’s paraphrased words of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians, “We simply wanted to provide an example of diligence, hoping it would prove contagious.” Let this be what the historians say about us when they look back on our lives. Indeed, if we are to change this, change our world, we must first change ourselves. Nobody can do this for you, you can’t cheat on this test. In fact, the test we take now is nothing like any we’ve ever taken before. Our success is not measured in correct answers or percentages. We’re not rewarded with A’s or B’s; we can’t earn extra credit. Rather, our goal is to change our campuses, our cities, our world, our environment, and the ways we live in them. In doing this we will set an example of diligence and others around us will be encouraged to take the torch, follow our example, and multiply that change throughout our world.

But even if this is not the case, even if others don’t follow our example quickly or correctly, we still must be the change. The truth is, we have nothing and no one to fear. Our world, when confronted with an unrelenting generation that demands change, will be forced to respond and eventually to get on board. Now we are faced with a daunting task. Just how do we live such changed lives in a manner that will affect our world? How do we first change ourselves? What if we don’t know what to do or even how to turn around and live changed? In order to do these things we must grasp the concept of the Greek word metanoia. Metanoia is a verb that means to make a change in mind, in purpose, and in life. Thus, our objective is three-pronged. We must change the way we think, we must find something worth living for, and then we must change the way we live.

Always know this. You are never too far gone. I Corinthians 13 says that not only will love remain, but also faith and hope. There is always hope for a purposeful, changed life because there are no restrictions on hope. Nothing can stop hope from being had. Yes, hope may be only a feeling. But the behavior which hope produces in us is much greater than a feeling. It is a powerful force. When we have hope, when we believe in a destiny, we become determined individuals, actively trying to affect change wherever we find ourselves. Thank you.

Lucentio and Bianca

I have run out of room in my favorite quotes section to add any more, so i would like to use a series of notes to recycle some of the quotes that are (now probably were) there. Even if i may decide to keep some that are currently there, I would like to take the opportunity to explain myself and maybe even communicate my own ideas on why the quote is important to me, why it voices my opinions well, or why it has inspired me to think, speak, act, or live differently. Anyhow, I'm going to start with some of the most recent, cause I'm inspired.

Here's for number one. Donald Miller. Blue Like Jazz. Chapter 7: Grace. It's a long one. Thanks to some computer genius for copy/paste.

"We dream of Christ's love for His bride reading like Romeo and Juliet; two equals enflamed in liberal love. I think it is more like Lucentio's pursuit of Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew. That is, the groom endearing the belligerent bride with kindness, patience, and love. Our "behavior" will not be changed long with self-discipline, but fall in love and a human will accomplish what he never thought possible. ...by accepting God's love for us, we fall in love with him, and only then do we have the fuel we need to obey. In exchange for our humility and willingness to accept the charity of God, we are given a kingdom. And a beggar's kingdom is better than a proud man's delusion."

I am reading this book for the second time now, because my roommate and I made a loose agreement to do so, and after failing to really make any progress on it myself while in school, I have read it here at home. This chapter has both times been my favorite, though I will say that I have not yet completed the book a second time. I love the way that he illustrates grace throughout the chapter. I am definitely one who "has trouble" accepting the grace of God. In fact, I think it's very difficult for anyone who is successful at something they love to love something they are not successful at. For me, it was baseball and academia (haha, i like to use that word). I worked hard all the time, I did well most of the time. It seemed to me a very fair and very universal system. The thing is, when it comes to life with God (which is something we are called to love), I am not generally successfully. My self-discipline is not enough. But the truth is, even typing that is hard for me to swallow. I have discovered recently that I am a very proud man (or at least boy) and I have built what I try to pass as a kingdom in my own mind, but, when I allow that kingdom to be exposed, I realize it is nothing more than my excuses, my reasoning, even my theology or my philosophy instead of things that are actually important. I have handicapped my heart with the idea that i must understand everything that I do, why I do it, and how to change it. It's not even the imagery of a bride and groom that trips me up, it's the intimacy of the relationship. I understand that God is pursuing his bride all the time, that that bride is the church, and that I am a part of it. What I so often miss is the real life pursuit of me that God is constantly engaged in. It's difficult for me to understand that His love for me is more than I could ever wrap my mind around, even with the help of an analogy. So, all to often I, like the prodigal, settle for the role of servant when my Lord wants to make me His son.