IMG_6502, originally uploaded by Elijah Stephen.

Do you see it? Origin material is ready to be used. No! Not the boards in the foreground—the blurs in the back: Those are the shapes of people, the committed ones of Origin Church, visiting what will be Origin Coffe & Tea. But the background is somewhat like the foreground.

Check out the boards. My buddy Tim milled each one. He’s just cool like that. Time consuming. Tedious. Messy. They are all of particular consistent design, yet not one the same; each meets a certain and same criteria, yet not one is exactly like the other. I see a fascinating analogy to the Church.

As useful as this wood will be to the Origin Coffee project—a project that will aid the rescue of kids in the sex trafficking epidemic—not one board will be of any value for Origin Coffee, disconnected from the whole, along side of the other. One isolated board is worthless unless used in connection with each other.

In similar way, Jesus is shaping his Church. Time consuming. Tedious. Messy. Each person is of value to the Kingdom of God. But just like building material, each person in the church must be conformed to a single standard for the Church to take shape: Christ! By grace, the Church takes shape.

But there is also diversity. As Tim milled the boards, there was not a one included that did not get shaped into the form of Tim’s choosing, and yet each board is unique, with its own grain, tone, and imperfections.

The key is this: the Church is milled into community. Speaking of the Church the Apostle Peter said, “…you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1Pet. 2:5). There is community in this verse! Take special note of the plural—not self, but selves!—Not stone, but stones!—Yet one single spiritual house! It’s not about any one individual, but that they are together being built into God’s expression of himself to the world: the Church community.

Should I get to the point? The point is that God does not use people in his Church in isolation, but in community—in mutual interaction, and service of each other. You’re not in the structure of Christ’s Church if you don’t find yourself wedged in the dirty jagged midst of people. Just like the lumber in the picture is made up of individual pieces that are forced together by gravity and intelligent placement, Christians in the Church are called into the Church for and by Jesus to be pressed and press against other people—which, lets be honest, is not always comfortable. But it is what you are called to!

One last thing, the Church Community is God’s plan, not ours. John Stott, as he often does, says it best:

We are not only committed to Christ, we are also committed to the body of Christ. At least I hope so….For the church lies at the very centre of the eternal purpose of God. It is not a divine afterthought. It is not an accident of history. On the contrary, the church is God’s new community. For his purpose, conceived in a past eternity, being worked out in history, and to be perfected in a future eternity, is not just to save isolated individuals and so perpetuate our loneliness, but rather to build his church, that is, to call out of the world a people for his own glory….So then, the reason we are committed to the church is that God is so committed.

This primary gist of Ephesians 3. Church community is not a modern construction, it’s not a historic construction, it is the eternal plan of God.

I hope that your view of the Church might increase in magnitude because it is in fact a transcendent living creation of God, not something that you attend to be entertained. The Apostle Paul, writing in Ephesians, expands the scope of God’s community to eternal proportions:

…you are no longer strangers…[but]…members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit (2:19-22). So that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him (3:10-12).

Due to delays, the building materials sit and wait. While the materials wait on planning and municipal logistics, etc., the Church does not—it grows into the community of Christ, a household, something solid and powerful. I am reminded and encouraged of the power of such a house when Jesus says, “…I will build my Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it” (Mat. 16:18). My friends be encouraged. Don’t get apathetic to God’s divine presence in the world, as tainted as it is through sin and pride of people. She is nonetheless Christ’s bride and perfect plan. Be in community. Enjoy the time consuming, tedious, messiness that is involved in loving people. That’s God’s plan for you. Love it!

I think that we can easily say, without explanation, that our culture has completely deified the Self.  Salvation has become being “in tune” with yourself.  But what I think may need an explanation is how much Christians are not that different.  Self-worship is huge in the Church.  In fact, we know very little else other than self-worship.  But even crazier is the fact that so many people think that they are worshiping God by worshiping themselves.

We don’t understand worship very well because we really see ourselves as the ones worthy of worship.  “God, look at how much time I have spent reading your Word.”  “God look at how nice I have been to people.”  “God look at how many times I have avoided sins that I really, really, really want to do.”  “I just tithed ELEVEN PERCENT.”  “God look at my Christian fish, my wwjd bracelet, and how many people I have told not to read the Shack or Harry Potter books.” (ok, the wwjd bracelet and HP is a thing of ten minutes ago, but you get my point.)

Worshiping someone else other than ourselves just doesn’t make a lot of sense.  We have such high views of ourselves; we slip easily into the idea that God needs, or at least really enjoys, our help—a lot.  However, this is, at best, major gospel confusion.  The gospel is not a help wanted ad; it’s a help available ad.  God does not need our anything!

You see how crazy we are?  As ridiculous as it is to think that these things would make a Holy God gawk in awe of how cool we are, it is, nonetheless, what we put in front of him as our means of justification when we point to something that we’ve done so that God will be pleased with us.  But God is not impressed.

Infact, quite the opposite.  When we join other believers for worship, and bring in a moralistic attitude, we place ourselves on the cross, the nails in our own hands, and we worship what we do instead of what Jesus did.  Our attitudes often will loudly proclaim, “I did a thousand things this week to be worthy of God’s love, and I deserve to be loved.”  The paradigm flips: Man turns to God and demands that God lift His hands, bow His knee, and praise man.

Reeeeee-diculous!  Christian, what you need to remind yourself is that God is not in your debt.  God owes you nothing—He already gave everything.  Jesus’ life and death is our righteousness.  In Jesus, we have 100% of what God wants from us.  When we add anything to it as a basis of justification, we worship something other than Jesus.  Jesus didn’t go to the cross because he wanted to make a down-payment so that we could get ourselves the rest of the way there.  Jesus didn’t hang on the cross and say to himself, “oh, those people are going to owe me big.  They’d better appreciate what I’m doing for them and pay up someday.”  (You did hear that from someone, but that was not God, that was your dad.)  Jesus said, “It is finished.”  God gave everything and asks for nothing from you that He wont do in you.  Nothing but Jesus meets God’s standards for payment my friends.

Of course, a biblical description of the life of a Christ follower is one of radical change, good deeds that pour out of them in abundance.  And yet!  We have to remember that not even our good deeds pay back grace; they actually borrow more grace!  As 2 Corinthians 9:8 says, “God is able to make all grace abound to you, [so that]…you may have an abundance for every good deed.”  Good deeds just keep borrowing grace, so no matter how much you have done, your debt is not decreased—It’s only increased.

That, my friends, is what we have to—what we must—remember as we bow the knee in light of the cross.  Like the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke. 18:9-14), only one goes home justified—the one who acknowledges the vastness of his debt, not the merit of his deeds.  God accepts worship that makes much of Jesus and relies on His grace.

Do you worship this way?  Are you standing before God empty handed, and praising him for all that he has done through Christ’s grace, that frees and empowers you for every good work.  Do you stand before Him knowing that you can only give back what you’ve been given?  My friends, let us let go of making much of ourselves and make much of Jesus.  He is our righteousness and salvation.

There’s my son.  It’s Good Friday, and so this morning I have been thinking about GoodFriday sort of things—the cross, Jesus, God giving up his Son, the fulfillment and end of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament that Hebrews speaks of—those things.  As I continued on that line of thinking, I began to realize the craziness of the cross, and the significance hit home in a way that it never has in my whole life:

Look at my son.  Do you know what I would never do?  Give him up.  For anything.  Ever.  EVER!

EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER !

Our minds can’t imagine this kind of sacrifice.  As an ok father, I have enough love for my son that the loss would cause me unimaginable pain, and I could never love you enough to loose him for you.  And yet God, a perfect father, did this.  Could you imagine how much that must have hurt. The Brian McLarens of the world who just dismiss the majesty of this act as “cosmic child abuse” miss that.  They miss, and don’t understand, the perfection of God, the Trinity, His love and Justice, the infinite ugliness of sin, and that Jesus, as God, was willingly taking on his own wrath.  God felt both pains: the loss of a son and the bearing of all human sin. My Lord and my God, we can not even begin to fathom the depth and richness of your love seen in the cross.

This is the centerpiece of our faith, the centerpiece of the Bible, and the centerpiece of time and eternity—that God became nothing, so that he could give us everything, by giving us himself.  The cross is offensive, foolish weakness, but to those who are being saved by it, it is life and power (1Cor. 1:18).  Happy Good Friday.

I have been pondering a question I heard about heaven all week.  How does this hit you?

“If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?”

Of course we say no.  But for some reason the conviction of the question doesn’t go away with simplicity of a “no” answer.  At least it doesn’t for me.

There are so many things that I might be far too content with—if I had a heaven without Christ.  It’s an ever-present reminder of the constant lure of lesser things.

How does that question hit you?

Well, I don’t know what to say.  I’ve read this book twice this week—but, I don’t know what to say.  The title, Not For Sale, is ironic because it’s an exposition of the fact that people are for sale, as unimaginable as that is 150 years post emancipation in Great Britain and the U.S.

Of course, awareness of the problem for most of us has grown over the last few years, but I had never seen the gruesome details so vividly.  Sex trafficking is the sterile name for the atrocities, but lets call it what it is: people—men, women, uncles, parents—who sell children to men who will rape them.

I still don’t know what to say.

Reading the book, and watching videos of a three-day conference, I fell in love with the heroes in the fight.  Kru Nam, an artist turned abolitionist, is one of the bravest, craziest women I have ever heard of.  And I know some crazy women.  In Chiang Mai, Thailand, she was so shocked by the stories of kids on the streets who had escaped the Karaoke bars.  The kids told her about their friends who were still enslaved by the bar owners, being raped ten times a night.  Kids, 3 to 17 years old.  Kru Nam, like all of us, was horrified and broken for these kids. She didn’t waste a second.

That night, without a plan beyond step one, she went into the first bar she saw, and grabbed two girls and a boy, ran out, and took them into her home.  She did this every night after.  Her reputation growing, bar owners put out the word to kill her—but she kept going.  That’s what I’m talking about.  Crazy heroic.  Awesome.

While David Batstone was authoring chapter one of Not For Sale, Kru Nam called him and said, “I have 27 kids and they’re living in two little grass huts—I need a house.”  David said that he would try to get her a house.  She called back, while he was writing chapter two, and told him that there was now 53 kids.  David said, “O.K., I will see if I can get you two houses.”  While he was writing chapter six, she called and said, “I couldn’t stop—I have 88 kids.”  David, jokingly told her to stop rescuing kids, but then said, “We are going to have to get a movement of people for that.”

Today, in northern Thailand, there is not a house or two, but a village, ran by Kru Nam, for her 127 kids, funded by a movement that Batstone has begun—but the problem is nowhere near contained.  This kind of heroic effort needs to happen 100,000 more times.

I’ll be honest, I’m not the stats guy, but the numbers totally rock me out of my V-neck.  Today, there are 27 million slaves, “more slaves [that] are in bondage today than were bartered for in four centuries of trans-Atlantic slave trade.”  Poverty is the problem.  Girls and boys in the worst conditions in the world are tricked, and wind up in a foreign land, in lock down, bent to their master’s will every night, for the profit and pleasure of the most callous of criminals.  This is the lot for many of the weakest people on our planet.

Francis Chan asks it best: what would we do—how much trouble would we go to—if the one taken was our own brother, sister, or child?

I still don’t know what to say.  But I know that Jesus has saved me.  He’s given me a heart that loves him more than the lures of comfort and consumerism.  He said to follow him.  He also explained what that means with the words, “Whatever you have done to the least of these…”

Origin Coffee is coming to Rocklin, CA.  It is going to be an opportunity to be like Jesus.  Kru Nam got this.  I look around my town, and I see very few things that look like Jesus, but I think that’s changing.  At Origin we’ve been using a phrase—“Tell them we’re coming.”  We say this because Origin Coffee is going to empower the next Kru Nams, rescuing those captive.  I have to go right now, but I want to tell you more about that next time.  Check out this video below if you want to see the work Kru Nam is doing.

Here are a few of images from Dan and Erin Cordova’s wedding—the first wedding pics that I have shot with my new Camera; no more borrowing from friends, yes!  But, Celestial’s images will be up soon, and they will tell the real story.

One of the things that I love about the art of photography is that it gives the artist such an ability to celebrate life in very concrete ways.  The most likely result of a photograph is that something tangible and real is captured, something beautiful, something painful, something sad, something surprising—something real.

Weddings have become one of my favorite things to photograph because it something concrete that celebrates the beauty of love, even though society has an extremely different view of it.  Societies idea is that somehow marriage is a restriction on true love; certainly this is how it is portrayed in our entertainment.  In This Momentary Marriage, Piper says, “How much more will the magnificence of marriage in the mind of God seem unintelligible in a modern Western culture, where the main idol is self; and its main doctrine is autonomy; and its central act of worship is being entertained; and its three main shrines are the television, the Internet, and the cinema; and its most sacred genuflection is the uninhibited act of sexual intercourse.”  But, the truth of marriage is such a beautiful thing that reflects the very nature of God.

When I get to photograph a wedding, I am reminded about the truth of the gospel.  On a couples wedding day, they are usually the happiest they have ever been—at least, by the time they get to the altar together, they are; relief from the stress in the moments prior adds to their joy.  Because of the gospel, we work hard to make ourselves ready for Christ—rather, the Spirit works hard in us—yet we are moved forward by love from, and love for, Jesus, because of the cross—he gave everything for us; we responds by making ourselves ready for him.   It is because of this that our stresses, the stresses that the bride and groom feel before they are united, are made light as we keep the marriage moment in mind.

And as we prepare for the day that we will be fully united to Christ, we prepare for a day that is infinitely better than a wedding day.  Again, Piper says about the transition from marital bliss to the eternal marriage of the lamb, “Nothing is lost.  The music of every pleasure is transposed to an infinitely higher key.”  Every moment in this life looks toward that moment when all will be made right, as we are united with Christ.

Here’s one last quote from Piper—get the book: “The greatness and glory of marriage is beyond our ability to think or feel without divine revelation and without the illumining and awakening work of the Holy Spirit.  The world cannot know what marriage is without learning it from God.  The natural man does not have the capacities to see or receive or feel the wonder of what God has designed for marriage to be.”

So there it is.  That’s why I love shooting weddings. That day is a small picture of gospel hope. Do you see marriage like that?  Perhaps you have a negative view of marriage and have personal experience to prove it—fair enough.  Do share.

God is a redeeming God.  It is one of the most important concepts for a Christians to understand, in and throughout every oz of their being.  So often we Christians worry way too much about what we are against, rather than what we are for.  What we should be about is reclaiming every good thing for God’s glory.  Even “taboos” must give way to their redemptive value.  Check out what Spurgeon has to say about smoking to the glory of God (careful it may be the best or worst thing you ever read; let me know):

To the Editor of the Daily Telegraph.

SIR,

YOU cannot regret more than I do the occasion which produced the unpremeditated remarks to which you refer. I would, however, remind you that I am not responsible for the accuracy of newspaper reports, nor do I admit that they are a full and fair representation of what I said. I am described as rising with a twinkling eye, and this at once suggested that I spoke flippantly; but indeed, I did nothing of the kind. I was rather too much in earnest than too little.

I demur altogether and most positively to the statement that to smoke tobacco is in itself a sin. It may become so, as any other indifferent action may, but as an action it is no sin.

Together with hundreds of thousands of my fellow-Christians I have smoked, and, with them, I am under the condemnation of living in habitual sin, if certain accusers are to be believed. As I would not knowingly live even in the smallest violation of the law of God, and sin in the transgression of the law, I will not own to sin when I am not conscious of it.

There is growing up in society a Pharisaic system which adds to the commands of God the precepts of men; to that system I will not yield for an hour. The preservation of my liberty may bring upon me the upbraidings of many good men, and the sneers of the self-righteous; but I shall endure both with serenity so long as I feel clear in my conscience before God.

The expression “smoking to the glory of God” standing alone has an ill sound, and I do not justify it; but in the sense in which I employed it I still stand to it. No Christian should do anything in which he cannot glorify God; and this may be done, according to Scripture, in eating and drinking and the common actions of life.

When I have found intense pain relieved, a weary brain soothed, and calm, refreshing sleep obtained by a cigar, I have felt grateful to God, and have blessed His name; this is what I meant, and by no means did I use sacred words triflingly.

If through smoking I had wasted an hour of my time—if I had stinted my gifts to the poor—if I had rendered my mind less vigorous—I trust I should see my fault and turn from it; but he who charges me with these things shall have no answer but my forgiveness.

I am told that my open avowal will lessen my influence, and my reply is that if I have gained any influence through being thought different from what I am, I have no wish to retain it. I will do nothing upon the sly, and nothing about which I have a doubt.

I am most sorry that prominence has been given to what seems to me so small a matter—and the last thing in my thoughts would have been the mention of it from the pulpit; but I was placed in such a position that I must either by my silence plead guilty to living in sin, or else bring down upon my unfortunate self the fierce rebukes of the anti-tobacco advocates by speaking out honestly. I chose the latter; and although I am now the target for these worthy brethren, I would sooner endure their severest censures than sneakingly do what I could not justify, and earn immunity from their criticism by tamely submitting to be charged with sin in an action which my conscience allows.

Yours truly,

C. H. SPURGEON.

I love being where God has told me to be.  But, I’m not going to lie; I’m dying to go out and get a “real job.”  However, it’s undeniable that God has me where I am, and he’s blessing it—sometimes I wish that I could ignore that.

But here’s the twist—God’s provision is amazing.  (I’m trying to break my exclamation habit, otherwise I would have put one there.)  Every time we get close to the edge, living with this budget of an accountant’s nightmare, God’s provision shows up exactly when he intended it to.  Today we received an anonymous cash gift from someone at Origin, as well as a check from a church that I played at that was three times bigger than I told them I needed, and a substantial gift from another church to pay for some school bills that I wasn’t going to be able to pay.  My mind is blown.  My gas tank is full.  (I really want an exclamation).

God knows our exact needs.  I have so little faith, but he is so good to his children.  The lilies of the fields don’t fret; why do we?

I am totally lying if I say it is comfortable, but I am telling the absolute truth that there is nowhere else that we want to be than right here.  ”For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness” (Psalms 84:10).

Family Fun-4.jpg, originally uploaded by Elijah Stephen.

Celest and I are teens again. That includes taking cute-silly-fun photos. I’m thinking about getting braces. Does anybody else have an irrepressible desire to TP something?

I love this!  Since I finished school, I have started writing songs again and redoing some of my old ones so that my church can sing them—It’s amazing what not taking seven classes at once can do for you.  I’m looking forward to sharing my progress ASAP.

In addition, a lot of the time that I have freed up has given me a chance to study the Word and read a bunch; I’m totally loving that.  God has been teaching me so much.

I am a worship leader, which I have mentioned.  I have been craving understanding of what that title means—for many that title doesn’t even come close to being applicable, and I have had a deep fear of that being the case for me as well—may it never be so.

The more and more I search, the more clear and inescapable the discovery: the roll of a worship leader is simply to point people to Jesus and turn them loose.  I strive to do that every time I am put before a gathering of worshipers.  Simplistic?  No!  There is infinite depth and beauty to unfold from such a manner of leading.

There is no New Testament title of “worship leader;” Paul did not go into cities and appoint pastors, teachers, and guys-that-play-guitar-and-sing-songs.  We who do this need to be very careful to evaluate our rolls in the church.

What the New Testament does call for, in terms of roll, is people who will lead well.  This means leading a Godly life, loving the Word, “adorning the doctrine of God,” as Titus 2:10 puts it, “adorning,” meaning to make it the main thing people see, “doctrine of God,” meaning Jesus—DOCTRINE, not doctrines; it’s singular for that reason.  As a result, the art that follows will be good art.  Lets be about that worship leaders.

I’m starting my sixth paragraph.  Why have I said all of this?  It’s because I am surrounded by a community.  Even after all this time of not blogging, somehow there are still people checking in and reading my rants, and what I’m up to.  Your reasons are your own.  I do, sometimes, wonder about you, however, my fine, wonderful, perhaps somewhat crazy, friends

I want to state my trajectory and be very clear about what I’m about.  This is accountability.  It lets me share what I have worked through in my heart and head as the Lord has been teaching me.  I also want to lay a foundation over the next few months about what it means to be a worshiper.  It’s amazing how such an old idea can get so far from Biblical.

What I am doing is not cool.  It is not hip right now to have an opinion.  It is not hip to use words like doctrine.  However, I am certain that this language needs to come from the perspective of a worship leader because I am convinced that so many who “worship lead” do a better job at using the music itself to stimulate a response, a tragedy, rather than the person of Jesus, who brings people to their knees on his own terms.

I don’t know what the Lord will do in my life over the next year, but I look forward to opportunities to share my journey with anyone who cares if it gives God the glory.  I will be writing songs, taking pictures, making videos, writing blogs, and anything else I can do to communicate how incredible the God who loves to redeem us is.  Our redeemed state is to worship him.  That is so much bigger than so many of us have settled for.  Lets change that.