Primal is about going back to the basics of Christianity, figuring out what is most important and focusing on that. Luckily, Jesus Himself told us what was most important: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength. It’s such a well-known quote that it’s easy to hear it and agree with it without ever really understanding it. I had always just understood it as a poetic/prosaic way of emphasizing that we’re supposed to love God with everything in us… but what if those four distinct areas were listed for a reason? Batterson explains what it might look like today to love God in with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

I was most intrigued by the idea that we love God with our mind through our God-given curiosity — not just about spiritual things, but about the world around us. That was especially encouraging to me as I’m heading back to college in a week!

Reading this book helped me realize that I’m pretty fortunate to be a part of a church that already puts a huge emphasis on loving God in many different ways. And it challenged me to love God even more!

The first time I came to Casa Hogar Benito Juarez in Reynosa, MX was this past June. It was just a couple of weeks after my father passed away. We left for Mexico on Father’s Day… and that was one of the reasons why I went. I just couldn’t imagine facing that day alone. Selfish motivations? Absolutely. But I wasn’t auditioning for sainthood.

I didn’t speak much Spanish, and the kids didn’t speak much (if any) English. Yet, even though they couldn’t always understand us, those kids trusted us implicitly and loved us. The gift I received from that trip was an invitation to trust God and love Him even when I couldn’t understand Him. That’s a lesson I’ve thought about many times in the six months since then.

Now I’m back in Mexico for another short missions trip. This time, we’ve come to deliver Christmas gifts that we collected from members of our church. We’ll be doing that later on today, and I can’t wait to see the looks on the kids’ faces, but I know I’ve already received my gift. There are things I take for granted back in the states (like a little privacy, hot water, and Internet access) that you can’t count on in Mexico. I knew that I’d probably be doing without those things this week. Yet… God (& Pastor Nathan!) worked it out so that I have all of those luxuries here… and I’m extremely grateful.

This trip has helped remind me that even the smallest things in my life are truly gifts… far better than the trinkets and smores and clothes and toys and everything else that we’ll be passing out to the kids today. And that realization itself is a great and wonderful gift.

But now, even though services like Facebook and Twitter require all users to have a valid email address, email itself is falling out of use and social networking sites are becoming a primary mode of communication.

On one level, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this: social networking sites are far more flexible and graphically interesting than “old-fashioned” email. And sites like Facebook and Twitter have allowed many, myself included, to maintain relationships and reconnect with folks from my (often distant) past.

But there is also an inherent problem. Social networking sites are increasingly more important as storehouses of contact information and platforms of communication – yet they are single points of failure. The strength of email (at least back in the ‘good old days’) was that it was a distributed service. There was no single email server out there processing the world’s email — there were many servers, each handling email for their little piece of the ‘net world. Every domain has to make provisions to handle its own email, and many otherwise incompatible systems can exchange email through a set of very basic shared protocols. The distributed nature of email meant that even if one server crashed, 99.99% of the other servers would probably still be up and running. In other words, the failure of one member of a distributed system was not enough to bring down the system as a whole. Recently, Google’s gmail service experienced some well-publicized difficulties… yet non-Google email users were still able to contact other non-Google email accounts with no problems. (How mega-services like Google are un-distributing previously distributed services is a topic for another day!)

Social networking sites are not distributed systems — they’re centralized. When twitter goes down, it’s down for everyone. When Facebook goes down or (perhaps worse) implements a sweeping change (that will almost never be received well), all users feel the impact. We are empowered or crippled at the whim of developers, hackers, and hardware failures. Just ask any T-Mobile Sidekick customer if they ever stopped to consider the danger of entrusting too much data to a centralized system before the now-infamous crash.

I’m the proud owner of a Palm Pre. One of the Pre’s strengths is its contact aggregation from sites like Facebook. In the dark ages before smart phones, if I needed to contact someone by phone, I might have looked up their published info on Facebook or some other ‘net resource, then manually created a contact for them in my cell phone. And then it would just sit there — never to be updated again unless I tried the number later on and found it to be disconnected. But my Pre is smart. It grabs all of my Facebook friends, and if they have phone numbers listed in their profile, those numbers are automatically part of my contact list. When they change their phone number on Facebook, my phone is also updated. It’s a wonderful feature…

Or maybe it’s a nightmare waiting to happen. Let’s imagine that something catastrophic happened at Facebook, a glitch that caused all phone numbers to be changed to, say, 555-1212. My Pre would dutifully update my contacts with this bogus info. We’d have to wait either for a) Facebook to fix the glitch, or b) individuals to realize that something was wrong and correct their own data individually. (Incidentally, the flood of folks trying to connect to change their info would probably bring Facebook down, and the resulting Tweetstorm would likely render Twitter hopelessly lagged and unresponsive…)

Facebook doesn’t allow you to export contact info, so there is no easy way to keep a backup copy of your friends’ information. (There are some hacks out there, but they seem to be shady at best.)

So what would we do if we woke up tomorrow and Facebook was down, perhaps indefinitely… perhaps forever?

You won’t find anything shockingly new or different in these pages, but you will find solid advice built on biblical principles and presented in a well organized and easily digestible format. If you’re not dealing with one of these “universal struggles” right now… you will face them eventually. Even though this book is “self-help,” reading it can also help you understand the pain of those around you – and perhaps even help you help them.

This book was especially timely for me. Sometimes we all just need to be reminded to look for God’s purposes regardless of our struggles.

But after you’ve been dealt a blow or experienced a failure — it’s so much harder.

Last week, Pastor Nathan preached about worship. One of the definitions for worship was “honoring someone of greater importance.” Another was “showing submission.” He encouraged us to honor and submit to God by giving EVERYTHING to Him… even our failures. Even the things that didn’t go well. At first, that sounded a little weird to me — don’t we want to give only our very best? What did it really mean to give our failures to Him? How could that also be an act of worship?

I had no idea how quickly I’d get a chance to put that into practice. By the middle of the week, I was slammed hard by three things at once: things that were all failures in some way. They made me question my intelligence, my judgment… and even my worth. One of these things resulted in some data being lost — and that hurt not only me, but some folks I really care about — including my pastors. I felt absolutely horrible about it. I was haunted by an endless string of “what ifs,” wishing I could change things. I felt like I was in a deep pit… and wouldn’t have minded much if someone just wanted to bury me there.

When you’re agonizing over your worthlessness, worship isn’t exactly the first thing on your mind.

When I told my pastor what was happening, he could have chosen to focus on the inconvenience that this caused… but he didn’t. Instead, he used that moment when I was at a real low point to remind me that my worth in his eyes and God’s eyes doesn’t depend on my performance.

I was still in a bad spot — I still had a lot of work ahead of me — but that one statement changed the atmosphere in my little personal pit. Before that, I felt mostly guilt and shame and wanted to hide. After… I was both humbled and honored that I could still be valued even when things didn’t turn out so well.

How can you help but respond in worship to such an awesome realization?

I gave those failures to God. That doesn’t mean that I’m not still working on fixing them, but it does mean that I’m leaning on Him for help rather than hiding from Him until I can sort it all out on my own. For me right now, that’s raw worship — worship stained with tears and dirt and blood — a real “just-as-I-am” surrendering, before I even attempt to make myself presentable. An acknowledgment of His superior worth and acceptance of the nearly incredible fact that this God of infinite worthiness and power sees me exactly how I am… and still sees value in me.

I came out of a manipulative church where people were judged by externals. Worship & altar ministry were super-emotional, super-hyped-up experiences. It wasn’t unusual for the leaders to ‘whip things up’ and give directions during the worship time. (For example, when they say stuff like “Everyone raise your hands,” “Let me hear you shout,” or “Get out into the aisles and dance.”) In a manipulative church, if you didn’t follow the directions, look happy enough, shout loud enough, jump high enough, etc, you were in rebellion or (at least) on a lower level spiritually than those who did. So now, even when the direction given isn’t nearly as extreme and the environment isn’t nearly as judgmental, there’s a part of me that gets very defensive / suspicious whenever any directions like that are given. I just cringe.

But I’m not in a place like that now. I trust my pastor, and I know that he wouldn’t try to manipulate our emotions. Yet I have to admit that this morning when he taught about worship, I was still a little uncomfortable when he told the congregation to lift our hands. I understood that he was giving more of a gentle suggestion than a judgmental direction (he even said, “if you’re comfortable, lift your hands…”), but it still felt a little awkward to me at first. I hesitated, but I did lift my hands — and even tho I was “following directions,” it was also an appropriate response in that situation (singing about surrender) and it wound up being a positive thing. When I began to participate physically (by lifting my hands), it helped me focus on what I was doing and why… and the worship was actually more real to me.

So why was this morning “real” while many past experiences seemed so plastic and fake?

First… I think the teaching helped. Everyone comes to church with their own concept of what “good worship” should look like. Those ideas are colored by past experience and style preferences… things that usually have nothing at all to do with the true definition of worship. Clearing out all that clutter helps a lot. To be perfectly honest, the style of worship at my church is not my first preference… and sometimes I have used that as an excuse to be more of an observer than a participant. The message this morning challenged that mindset.

Second… I truly understood that while I was being challenged to do some specific things, there would be no penalty for NOT doing them. If I had just stood there and NOT raised my hands, NOT clapped – even if I didn’t sing a single note – there would be no disapproving glances or warnings that I needed to shape up. It is much easier be genuine when you know you’re not being judged… and worship should never be about putting on a show for someone else’s benefit. It’s about you & God.

Third… there is a difference between giving advice and making demands. Because I’ve had bad experiences in the past, I tend to see all worship-related direction as a demand… but now I’m learning to see it more like advice or encouragement. And I say “learning” because I know that I still have a long way to go

And there’s still plenty more for me to chew on from this morning There might be another blog post coming…

While the author’s life is a fascinating tale of overcoming obstacles… I found the author’s style at times to be somewhat of an obstacle to reading the book. When he shared personal stories about his childhood or business challenges, I was glued to the pages. I often wished he had shared more about those experiences. Unfortunately, much of the book was explaining and re-explaining the author’s “Takeaway Messages,” which often overlapped from chapter to chapter. (A couple of times, I found myself wondering if I had accidentally turned back and started re-reading a previous chapter.) That doesn’t detract from the value of the lessons; but de la Vega would have done better to heed his own advice: “A well-honed, effective message makes its point without superfluous clutter.” (p 141)

Yet, there is enough in this book to make it well worth the read. His chapter on sacrifice, while not nearly as unique has he imagines it to be, was refreshing and insightful. His thoughts on inclusion (diversity) were also excellent. There’s nothing “new” in this book — but de la Vega’s perspective is unique and deserves to be heard.

This book explores the history of Guinness and lets us peer into the lives of those who turned the dark brew into an internationally recognized brand. Along the way we meet real people with genuine faith and a deep commitment not only to improve the quality of their product, but to improve their employees’ quality of life.

Guinness was far ahead of its time in providing education and health benefits to its workers. They also had a tremendous impact outside of the brewery through social activism and missionary work.

This book caught my attention because God and Guinness struck me as an odd couple. The title might even seem sacrilegious to some. Yet Mansfield reminds us that only a century ago, Christian attitudes towards alcohol (beer in particular) were very different.

If you believe that beer always was and always will be indisputably evil, you may not like this book – but you should read it anyway! Beyond the brewery, this book tells the stories of Christians who lived out their faith in the workplace. They stood up for unpopular social causes. They gave back to their communities. They took care of their workers. And they did it all despite famines and wars, economic downturns and political upheavals. Those are lessons we could all stand to learn.

In the Preface, Edwards says that he wrote the book specifically for Christians who had been “devastated by the authoritarian movement.”  He hoped that it would help them heal and move on… but overall, he gave survivors a rather grim prognosis: “I have never seen anything that has damaged so many believers so deeply. The wreckage appears to be universal, and recovery from it is almost nil.” Not exactly what you want to hear, right?

The author makes no apologies for stepping on toes throughout the book. As the story unfolds, he paints a picture of authority and submission that can be somewhat frustrating for those of us who have lived under legalistic authoritarian leaders. Edwards reminds us that God uses flawed people… and even bad leaders can be “God’s anointed.” There’s no pity party, no encouragement to stand up to leader(s) in question and give them a piece of your mind. Instead, Edwards suggests that it’s best left in the hands of God, and our best response just might be no response at all: just submit quietly, and when you cannot stay any longer, leave quietly without seeking revenge or restitution.

On the one hand, we probably recognize the nobility of such a meek response. But on the other hand, there is something within us that cries out for and even DEMANDS justice when we perceive that a great injustice has been done. Anything less seems wrong — or at least “unAmerican!” (After all, it was Thomas Jefferson & Ben Franklin who said “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”) David’s response to a cruel and unjust leader (King Saul) almost appears cowardly in comparison. Today, a young David would be ridiculed and considered a wimp because he didn’t retaliate against Saul. Someone who had been treated so badly surely he had the right to fight back… but David didn’t! Saul threw spears at David — and David didn’t throw them back. He didn’t even complain about them. As a result, God was able to use Saul to develop brokenness in David.

Gene Edwards says that God doesn’t have many broken men and women, yet this is what He wants (p 15). When I first read that, it seemed strange. I thought I knew or at least knew of a lot of broken people. After I left a legalistic church, I certainly felt like I was broken. But by Edwards’ definition, I was far from it. Someone who is broken learns how to dodge spears without throwing them. Without demanding justice. Without calling attention to it. They don’t get bitter — even when a spear has pierced their heart.

I wasn’t broken. I was wounded. I was bitter, angry, frustrated. I felt beaten down, hurt, the victim of injustice. I mistakenly equated that woundedness with brokenness. Yet by Edwards’ definition, that sort of woundedness is clear evidence of a lack of brokenness (p 19-20). The times when David was most broken before God were the times when he was least interested in promoting himself, proving he was right, or perserving his position. He was broken before he was king when he had an opportunity to kill Saul in a cave, but refused. He was broken when he wept over Absalom, even though Absalom had tried to kill David and take his place.

By that standard, I don’t know if I’ve ever truly been broken… or if I’ve just nursed my wounds and thrown my spears from the safety of a circle of approving (and similarly wounded) friends.

Woundedness seeks swift justice. Brokenness seeks God’s mercy. Woundedness looks for ways to save face. Brokenness looks for God’s face, even in a cave. Woundedness wants to correct others by taking action against them. Brokenness wants to be corrected by God. Woundedness just leads to more woundedness. Brokenness leads to healing.