Grace to smile in sickness, to dance in death, to cartwheel in chaos, to strike a pose, though all around us and inside us crumbles. Grace to understand that this isn’t the way things are supposed to be, at least not forever. But it’s the way things are now and here. Grace to believe there is plenty of grace for all of it. All we have to do is receive it; life that is. Life, as is.

And if we’ll take what life gives, grace will find us—in all her fierceness and splendor, dressed in chain mail and armor, ready to pin a sprig of lilac on our collars. But she only comes to those of us who find ourselves in the places where brokenness and rejoicing coexist. Places where bitter death tolls harmonize with strains of celebration. Places where broken bones dance to the trumpet’s blast.

(excerpt from As Is, page 35)

If you’re thinking…”um wow, when did Tyler become such a good writer?” Let me put your thoughts at ease: I didn’t write those words.

I’ve been reading a book titled As Is by a mostly unknown author over the past few weeks. This was by far my favorite part and also best captured the theme of the book as a whole.

Aside from just letting this sit here as is (I kid, I kid), here are a few quick observations on these paragraphs:

1. Krista refers to grace as a woman, which is really quite normal. Before being married I would have thought that was lame. Now it makes complete sense. Grace isn’t too common in me.
2. I find myself almost always opposed to go to the places where we find grace. Because grace means uncomfortable and exposed. Why is it that I shy away from those places in life?
3. The typical Christian view of grace is somewhat limited to me. We take it as God’s forgiveness towards us sinners. I did a study on this in school, but I believe God’s grace shows up in our lives in many ways other than when we sin.

What has God taught you about grace?

I said last week that it hadn’t rained here in over 3 weeks. Let’s make that over 4 weeks now.

Blogs

1. Eugene on imperfectly living out our faith.
2. Not that I agree but this is well put together: “Why national flags don’t belong in church.”
3. Just when I thought BP was starting to figure it out, this happens.
4. Don Miller wrote a very thought provoking post about the context of spirituality and faith.
5. Funny and true. SCL post on secreting being liberal.
6. The band I played with at Sunset last weekend decided to have some fun for the prelude at our 11am gathering. Check it out.

News

• As if you needed more proof that the PCUSA denomination is in major trouble.
• A bus driver in Austin, TX was fired for refusing to drop off a traveler at a Planned Parenthood. Hmm…
• The next big thing isn’t sermons on a screen at multiple locations, its 3-d hologram preaching. This is going a little too far I think.
• Incredible pictures of the 2010 Tour de France from Boston.com.

Have a great weekend.

That Old Spice campaign last week in Portland? I don’t get it, but it went viral.

I do some social media stuff for The Mentoring Project and yesterday one of our tweets on Twitter went viral. I’ve seen things get retweeted (think of this as sharing what someone else said for those of you who don’t use Twitter) 20 times and thought it was getting a big push. Yesterday I set up @tmproject for a tweet in the morning, and it got retweeted over 500 times. Make that over 700 times (and growing) between Twitter’s standard retweet and the old school retweet.

I could explain why in this instance so many people got behind a statistic, but why people got behind this instead of the hundreds of other things we’ve done over the last 6 months is beyond me. It helped that two Twitter users with a large following retweeted us and that led many others to as well. But we didn’t ask for anyone to get behind this. This is the part of social media I’ll never understand or be able to predict.

A lot of times art only makes complete sense to the artist.

Going viral on social media is kind of like that. It doesn’t make much sense.

Everyday great things get overlooked and important things are missed, while the opposite gets glorified.

I’m just glad that yesterday more people were made aware of the fatherless epidemic that we can do something about through mentors.

Any thoughts on how things go viral?

There are a lot of lies that are spoken and unspoken when it comes to beginning to use and connect with social media. And sadly there are plenty of lies that I’ve believed for a time. Sometimes these lies drive us to use Twitter or start a blog, but soon enough reality will set in and more often than not, these people slowly disengage. Here are some lies about social media I’ve believed:

1. Your blog will land you a job. There are probably a few thousand people out of many, many million who could get a job because of the name they’ve built on these social networks or through their blog. But guess what? You aren’t one of those people. Your blog may help (or hurt) you get an interview for a job, but you will never, ever get a job because you have a great blog.
2. You will get a bunch of new best friends. I’ve made a lot of meaningful friendships through this blog and other social networks, but far too often introverts get onto Twitter looking for a new connection only to find out that not everyone else is looking for the exact same thing. This isn’t to say you can’t make friends, but until the friendship moves to a face to face connection, it will only be so deep. Call me traditional but I still believe deep friendship happens face to face.
3. People care about my stats. There’s always someone who has more followers or subscribers so there really is no reason to think you’ve arrived. Some people think it is crazy how many people read my blog (couple hundred a day), but I know many who would say that is ridiculously low. In the end though, I don’t think people care about how many followers you have, they care about how you treat them as a person.
4. It’s easy. This is the worst lie of all. Talk to a lot of “experts” on social media and you will get the perception that having success within social media is really pretty easy. You do this and then you do that and then VIOLA, you’ve hit the big time. To truly connect with people or to build a decent readership of a blog takes A LOT of time, effort, and energy. Not just for one month, but always. It takes a consistent drive to be creative and to desire to connect with real people, not just be a content robot.

What lies about social media have you believed?

Check this out:

“In a recent survey of 1,000 church attenders, respondents were asked, ‘Why does the church exist?’ According to 89 percent, the church’s purpose was ‘to take care of my family’s and my spiritual needs.’ Only 11 percent said the purpose of the church is ‘to win the world for Jesus Christ.’” – Greg Laurie, senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California.

Rather than rehash a lot of what Bob Hyatt has already said, I’ll point you towards his post. To me, it is a must read.

I do think there is a role of the church in meeting the needs of the community around and within. However, I do have a problem with the poll results from Greg Laurie’s church (my sister attends there sometimes when she is in school).

I am curious though…

According to you…

Why does the church exist? Or why does your local church exist?

I’ll be writing my philosophy of management paper tonight. Thanks for your help earlier this week.

Blogs

1. Video of John Piper sharing his most important thing young church leaders should know.
2. 11 women writers you should be reading from Brian McLaren.
3. Interesting post: “The Lie About Spiritual Growth.”
4. 5 attributes of a church in decline from Tony Morgan. I wish I could say this wasn’t spot on, but I think it is.
5. 9 things to know before you turn 30 (but really they’re just good life lessons, no matter what age you are).
6. Have you heard about the viral Old Spice videos being filmed in Portland this week? Well read all about it right here. Quite the social media phenomenon.

News

• Want to go to Jordan for free? The Queen of Jordan is doing a big tourism push for her country through TwitVid.
• A priest in Holland has been suspended by the Catholic Church because he held an orange mass before the World Cup Final last weekend.
• During the Tour de France, Jet Blue will let you ship your bike for free and also watch the Tour on their seat back TVs. That is LEGIT.
• My generation is finding the “American Dream” very very elusive. A great New York Times article that I found to be spot on.

Grace and Peace.

I’ve had a new thought since then.

I feel those of us who are married often place the relationship we have with our spouses above our relationships with God.

It is still an idol of marriage, but in this case it is more of an idol of our husband or wife.

After Rose got back from her trip in Hawaii she told me she had a strong realization there that she had placed me over God all throughout our marriage. Essentially she said her first love had been trumped by me.

To be honest, I had no idea how to respond. I mean what do you say to that? “I’m sorry.” Or maybe, “no you haven’t.” Or even better, “I’m glad you finally figured that out.”

It was a tough spot. But I quickly realized, I’ve done the same thing.

I too have decided to spend time with Rose instead of God, and not just once. I too have given my devotion and energy to Rose before I even began to think about my relationship to God.

I’m sure a lot of you are no different.

I completely agree with churches who place a big emphasis on the importance of strong marriages, but maybe what we need is churches who place a big emphasis on first seeking the face of God.

Maybe if we do that before anything else, the whole marriage thing will fall into place a lot easier.

I’ve had a hard time coming to some sort of conclusion in my head before I start the typing process.

I asked my senior pastor yesterday what his was when we were out wake boarding and water skiing, and he said:

“Find people who are passionate about something and let them loose. It’s that simple.”

I don’t necessarily disagree but I have 10 pages to fill so his thoughts leave a little space to be desired.

So I thought I’d ask all of you:

What is your philosophy of management?

I often get asked why I blog, why I tweet, and why I use Facebook.

There are a lot of reasons. For one I find it enjoyable, a great way to connect, and a great way to pass information.

But there is a much bigger reason. God has placed the church (universal and local) into specific areas where they are able to speak into the culture around them. Part of his message never changes but part of how the message is portrayed is shaped by culture.

A look at how music in churches has changed over the past 500 years is a perfect example of this. How the church was to specifically operate was not outlined in the Bible (I mean this in terms of organization and corporate gatherings), despite what some people may say.

The much bigger reason that I’m on Facebook and Twitter and why I blog into the vast depth of the internet is because culture is using the things.

Pew recently came out with a study which showed the following to likely be true about Generation Y:

“By 2020, members of Generation Y (today’s “digital natives”) will continue to be ambient broadcasters who disclose a great deal of personal information in order to stay connected and take advantage of social, economic, and political opportunities. Even as they mature, have families, and take on more significant responsibilities, their enthusiasm for widespread information sharing will carry forward.”

While some people may think my time spent writing on this website or tweeting is a complete waste, I say that I’m speaking into a culture that is shifting towards these avenues for relationships and connection.

The church and the people of the church who fail recognize the changing landscape of our culture are missing out on reaching people where they are.

I’m probably just preaching to the choir here though…

Your thoughts?

I know the Twins are a great 2nd half team most years, but they’ve been hard to root for the past month. And they couldn’t land Cliff Lee in a trade either. Not looking too good.

Hope you fellow Oregonians survived the heat wave.

Blogs

1. If we can learn one thing from Eugene, we must learn to be careful what we tweet.
2. The Mentoring Project could really use a vote from you to help them win a grant from Chase Bank.
3. Jan wrote a great post titled “A View from the Pew.”
4. Why does social media matter to your ministry?
5. Loved this from Dave Ramsey: “The spiritual side of money.” He has some truly challenging, yet thoughtful words.

News

• A great resource for young church leaders on preaching and the emerging church.
• Even the Sports Guy is getting into soccer for the World Cup. I’m going with the Netherlands for the big win on Sunday. They’ve been my underdog the whole way (yes, I picked them to beat Brazil).
• Bill Platscke has a problem with the MLB All Star game. I mostly disagree with him, but agree that Charlie Manuel screwed up by leaving out Strasburg and taking Ryan Howard.
• Great review of John Mark McMillan’s new album. Can’t wait to get my hands on it. Incredible album if you ask me.
• I was mad at LeBron for his decision to leave Cleveland, but then I read the statement from the Cavs GM and I think I’ll be more mad at the GM for having no tact or class in his conduct. Honestly, I thought it was a prank or something. How can his statement not be a joke?

Have a great weekend.