Interview: Clarification

I really appreciated the North County Times doing a story on the Branches. I also understand how difficult it must be to interview someone and try to get everything right. Sometimes there are things that just get changed, misunderstood, or are lost in translation. So here is a list of things that were a little skewed let's say: (by the way, you can find the article here)

1) I didn't go to "seminary", I went to Barclay College in Haviland, Kansas.

2) "The church's mission, Pinkerton says, is to emphasize the Bible." Now I can see how Dan Bennett got that from what I said, and I am very happy with that, but what I really said was, "The church's mission is to ask people to come as they are, hear what God says, do what God says, and tell others how awesome He is!" I then went onto say that we are all about the Bible.

3) There was a section that was a long quote by me and at the end it said, "Our purpose is to love people with God's love, and understand that we all have God in us." Now I'm sure that I said 'Our purpose is to love people with God's love' but where the discussion went from there, I'm sure I didn't say that we all have God in us. As someone who "Confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believes in their heart that God raised Him from the dead." then you have God in you. We were all created in God's image but we need to repent and believe into Jesus. We hope this happens at the Branches for a lot of people!

4) "We have a vision, and our core values speak to the mission, but people are free to use those as they will." I don't know where this actually came from. I know I talked about the vision, our core values, and the mission but I don't know how this came out sounding like this. I probably said something like "We have a vision, and our core values speak to the mission, but people are just invited to come as they are."

5) "We hope to have a Bible Study every other week." I said we have a Men's Bible Study every other week right now and we want to add a Woman's Bible Study.

6) "We don't necessarily want to have a large sanctuary" I said something very similar to this but my emphasis was the fact that we don't want to have a "sanctuary" at all. I wouldn't mind having a large gathering place, but it will not be called a sanctuary. ;)

I want to commend Dan Bennett for having a set of great questions for me to answer during the interview. I also understand how papers work. There are so many words that can be dedicated to an article. I talk a lot and there was no way he was going to get all of those words in there. For the most part the article was great. I'm not complaining at all, just clarifying so that some of you could hear what I fully meant by some of my comments. Thank you North County Times for the love. We really appreciate it!

Nature Shananagans

I was watching my son play outside today and was bewildered at first by some of the things he decided were so much fun. Here is a list:

1) Tearing up those small root thingies that look like sticks that connect to the ground on both ends.

2) Walk back and forth on the big roots.

3) Tearing bark off the tree.

4) Picking at the grass.

And as I was wondering why he was finding this stuff so entertaining all of a sudden a flood of memories came back. I remembered tearing up those root thingies. I remembered walking on the big roots. I remembered tearing bark off the tree, then I remember someone getting onto me about how the tree was going to die if I tore too much off. I remember picking grass and making a pile out of it.

For some reason we really love playing with nature as kids. I wonder if there's something to that. Besides my Atari 2600 I really don't remember playing with any particular toy as a kid. But today I did remembered playing with nature, my son reminded me.

I'm Exhausted in the Lord

I slept about 5 hours last night. Excited to share a day with God and people at the Branches Community Church.

We met at the school at 8:00 to blow up balloons and get the EGGSPLOSION ready. We made quick work of that and watched as many families came in to grab some of the 5,000 candy filled eggs. I don't think that anyone counted but there were probably 70 people there at the EGGSPLOSION. It was fun watching the kids go at it. My mom did a great job organizing the event and everyone did a great job pulling it off.

Then it was worship time! We had a great time together, watching, singing, listening, praying, thinking, etc. Nathan did a great job with the slides. Kris brought the thunder out of John 20 with the message. Brandon, Matt, and Anne Marie had a great set ready for us, including the song by Hillsong United "Stronger". JJ, Lydia, and Steve did a great job with all of the media stuff. Kimberly just seems to do a little bit of everything (including my hair). Tammy and Shelby of course have the coffee, doughnuts, and other drinks ready. I love working with these folks.

My sisters again knocked it out of the park with the little kids. Susan planned a great craft where the kids could roll the stone away. And my wife was great spending time with the kids who were a little too old for the nursery.

God is building a great community of people that love each other. Our talents are spaced out just about perfectly.

What was so exciting this morning was seeing families I had never seen before. God is building His Church. And I am exhausted in the Lord and will get a very good nights sleep tonight.

Blessed by God

Well it happened again. We were blessed again. It's getting kind of ridiculous at this point.

It started well before Catalyst West but this story is about that conference and how God blessed us while we were there and the subsequent blessings. My wife and I while attending this Catalyst saw some things that we would love to have for our ministry. Of course being the poor (financially speaking) church leaders that we are we couldn't afford these things. We noticed that many booths were giving away iPads. We had been really wanting an iPad and decided to sign up at all the booths that were giving them away.

There was one booth in particular that caught our eye. They were giving out the iPad but they were also giving away the brand new Francis Chan curriculum, some children's curriculum, and some worship music as well in their drawing. We said to each other how great it would be to win that particular contest.

We also passed the Project 7 booth. Project 7 is a booth that sells coffee to churches and individuals on a monthly subscription basis. It is a ministry to help people, their mission, "You buy, we give." They too were having a drawing, for a year's subscription for coffee. We were actually standing there trying to decide if we should purchase a years subscription for the church, but alas, back to the poor thing again.

Fast forward to about a week ago. Tonya gets an email announcing that she is a winner of the iPad, Francis Chan curriculum, children's curriculum, and worship music!

Fast forward to two days ago. I get a call from Project 7 that I was a winner of a year's subscription of coffee!

We left Catalyst just thinking that someone else won the prizes, which never really gets us down because of the number of people we were in the drawing with, only to find out a month or so later we were both winners. God is good. He knows we need these things for the church and He is providing. He is also writing a pretty good story.

Contend

"Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.". Jude 1:3


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Location:N Citrus Ave,Escondido,United States

Subway vs. Taco Bell

On Fridays I take my kids lunch. I like to take them what they like to eat as a treat. Unfortunately I usually have to go to two different places, but for them I will do this. This week I got out the door a few minutes after the time I intended to leave. This is a problem. Generally it's a problem because of some of the anxiety issues my son deals with. You see, if I'm not there waiting at the door for him when he gets out of class he starts worrying. Worrying that I forgot or that I'm not going to come. I don't think it's about the food at all, it's more about whether his dad remembers him. It's happened rarely but when it happens, the sick look on his face is enough for me to make sure that I'm there the next time when I say I'm going to be there.

This Friday though I learned a lesson. This Friday, like I said before, I got out the door late. Sidney wanted Subway and Lucas wanted Taco Bell. I pulled out of the lot and went to Subway first. I felt like everything was in slow motion at Subway. Everything just took so long. I probably wasted 15 minutes in line amongst other things. As I left the parking lot at Subway I knew I was screwed. Then I missed the light, one of the slowest lights in Escondido. So I decided not to turn left and to go through the green and go around the block. Good delivery driver move. I then missed the next light. Then I had the sick look on MY face.

Then...I prayed. I prayed that Taco Bell would be FAST! I prayed that God would pave the way for me to get through that drive thru with a speed that could not be explained. And you know what, God did it! I've never been through a drive thru faster, and I've been thru a lot of drive thrus.

So I was rejoicing, knowing that I would be on time for my son. As I pulled into the school and got out of the car I was so looking forward to writing this blog about how God had gotten me out of a jam. Then it happened. As I walked by the office my son walked out with that sick look on his face, my heart sank. I apologized and he accepted and we sat together while he ate. He was okay after a few seconds.

But I couldn't help examine in myself what had just happened. Why would God provide a way at Taco Bell only to get me to the school just moments after Lucas got out of his class? Then I really thought about it.

You see God has been teaching me about trust recently. Do I truly trust Him? As I thought about this in this setting, Subway vs. Taco Bell, it wasn't a competition between them at all, it was a competition between my trust of God vs. my distrust of God. I got myself in a jam, I let the jam extend, then, when I was at my wits end I prayed. I didn't pray for God to get me to the school on time, I prayed that the drive thru would be fast. It's like I wanted to do a bunch of it on my own and then have God do a little part. Why couldn't I trust God when I walked out of the house, knowing I may be late, with the whole enchilada?!?

I have a feeling things at Subway would have gone a lot differently, things at those lights would have been different, my attitude would have been different, and there would have been no sick look on anyone's face.

Who's side are you on anyway?!?

It seems that a lot of people are wanting to take sides recently. In my life I have felt that some people think I'm on one side or another. I'm really not, at least when it comes to particular human sides. I have been listening to and reading a lot of different people recently. As a person I like most of the stuff I read, probably because I generally stick to reading people that I connect with on a theological level. But I do read stuff that I disagree with. As I analyze why I tend to agree and love to read some and why I disagree and tend to not love reading others I think it comes down to something very simple. The way they handle scripture.

Now some of you may be thinking, "Well James, you just like reading or accept the writing of people you happen to agree with and how they interpret scripture." Well you may be right. As a matter of fact you are probably incredibly right. But I made a promise to myself many years ago that if the Bible said something, that something was true, whether I like what it says or not. The Bible is clearer than many give it credit for. The problem most people have is that it says something they don't want to hear. And so they "interpret" the Bible differently, or try to anyway. Basically, I want the Bible to say to me just exactly what IT wants to say to me.

Here are a few examples so you get what I mean:

I believe that baptism should be done by immersion because the Greek word used for baptism is translated as immerse.

I believe Jesus was and is God, because He claimed to be.

I believe God predestined people to be His and I also believe we have the option to repent or not to repent. I don't understand how that works together but I also don't pretend to have the mind of God.

I believe that God created the world.

I believe that gossip, lying, murder, homosexuality, stealing, coveting, adultery, and obviously many other things are sins because they Bible says they are.

I believe we all sin and we all need forgiveness. I believe Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins and he calls us to holiness, not sin.

I could list about 482 more things or more.

What I am trying to say, with this whole post, is that I am not on any man's side. I am on God's side. If someone is trying to take a swipe at Scripture, God's Words, and change what the Bible is plainly saying, you may think that I'm not on their side, but in all actuality I am just standing squarely on the side of what the Bible says. If I quote someone that I agree with it's not because I am on their side, it's because I am on the side of what the Bible says. Believe it or not there are men and women out there that look at what the Bible says, believe what it says is true, and then live according to what says.

Rob Bell in His Own Words (Part Four)

Lisa Miller interviewed Mr. Bell a day before "Love Wins" released. Here is an excerpt of that interview:

"Let’s get right to it. You have been accused in a lot of the coverage of your book of being a universalist. A universalist, in theological terms, means that everybody gets to go to heaven – everybody is allowed to go to heaven. That means Buddhists, Hindus – you can reinterpret my definition when I’m done – Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Atheists, all get to go to heaven. Are you a universalist?" Lisa Miller

"No – if by universalist we mean there’s a giant cosmic arm that swoops everybody in at some point, whether you want to be there or not." Mr. Bell

At this point, if I were Lisa Miller, I would have interrupted and interjected this question: "What I mean by universalist in the context of your book is, God love will "melt everyone's heart". What do you mean by "everyone"? Your book talks about Buddhists, Hindus, and Baptists from Cleveland, with the strong insinuation that people will be uncomfortable when others find them in heaven. Do you believe life long Buddhists, Hindus, and even Baptists from Cleveland will be in heaven? Do you believe that people who die still have a chance to find Jesus post mortem? Essentially saying that everyone will eventually want to be at the party?"

To me this is universalism. You can say that universalism means that God swoops down and grabs everyone, or you can say that everyone will be saved eventually, through God's love melting their hearts, they are essentially the same things. Wouldn't it be God's loving arm that swoops down and grabs everyone? Mr. Bell needs to quit with the tap dance and just come out and say that one way or another everyone will be saved from hell in the end, because hell's not eternal or forever.

The Branches New Website

We have officially launched the Branches new website! See it here:

www.thebrancheschurch.com

Let us know what you think.

Rob Bell in His Own Words (Part Three)

"As soon as the door is opened to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Baptists from Cleveland, many Christians become very uneasy, saying that then Jesus doesn't matter anymore, the cross is irrelevant, it doesn't matter what you believe, and so forth.

Not True.

Absolutely, unequivocally, unalterably not true.

What Jesus does is declare that he,

and he alone,

is saving everybody.

And then he leaves the door way, way open. Creating all sorts of possibilities. He is as narrow as himself and as wide as the universe."

All of the above words are Mr. Bells. If what Mr. Bell is saying is that any Muslim can turn to God and repent and have faith in Christ and Christ alone, then I am in total agreement with him. Unfortunately what I believe he is saying is that Jesus will save everyone on their path, whatever path that may be, either that or they can repent and have faith in Jesus after death.

Again, back to Acts 4:12, "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."

People can't call on the name of Buddha, Muhammad, Krishna, etc. to be saved, if I am to believe what the Bible says is true. Now if I don't want to believe what the Bible says is true then I can believe what Mr. Bell is saying above. But I can't believe it if I don't want to throw out Acts 4:12 and any one of a number of other whole sections of the Bible.

If God didn't...

If God didn't create everything...

Why are there just males and females? Why not a gagillion different types?

How did our eye balls develop the ability to see? They are like mega computers after all.

How did the whole sex thing just magically happen? In other words how did a woman develop an egg and a man develop sperm and then they mix to become another human?

How much time would it have really taken to develop the human body to actually do all that it does?

DNA? How?

Cells? How?

Atmosphere? How?

Rob Bell in His Own Words (Part Two)

"And then there are others who can live with two destinations, two realities after death, but insist that there must be some kind of 'second chance' for those who don't believe in Jesus in this lifetime. In a letter Martin Luther, one of the leaders of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, wrote to Hans von Rechenberg in 1522 about the possibility that people could turn to God after death, asking: 'Who would doubt God's ability to do that?'"

Now Luther in context. Kind of interesting how Mr. Bell takes a eight word question in this letter and makes it sound like Luther is on his side.

"If God were to save anyone without faith, he would be acting contrary to his own words and would give himself the lie; yes, he would deny himself. And that is impossible for, as St. Paul declares, God cannot deny himself [II Tim. 2:13]. It is as impossible for God to save without faith as it is impossible for divine truth to lie. That is clear, obvious, and easily understood, no matter how reluctant the old wineskin is to hold this wine—yes, is unable to hold and contain it.

It would be quite a different question whether God can impart faith to some in the hour of death or after death so that these people could be saved through faith. Who would doubt God’s ability to do that? No one, however, can prove that he does do this. For all that we read is that he has already raised people from the dead and thus granted them faith. But whether he gives faith or not, it is impossible for anyone to be saved without faith. Otherwise every sermon, the gospel, and faith would be vain, false, and deceptive, since the entire gospel makes faith necessary. (Works, 43, ed. and trans. G. Wienke and H. T. Lehmann [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968], 53-54; WA 10.ii, 324.25-325.11)"

I think any Christian could say, "Who would doubt God's ability to do that?" about ANYTHING. But what Luther is not saying here, in context, is that everyone will be saved in the end. It would contradict what he had just said in the paragraph previously.

Now back to Mr. Bell:

"And so space is created in this 'who would doubt God's ability to do that?' perspective for all kinds of people--fifteen-year-old atheists, people from other religions, and people who rejected Jesus because the only Jesus they ever saw was an oppressive figure who did anything but show God's love.

And then there are others who ask, if you get another chance after you die, why limit that chance to a one-off immediately after death? And so they expand the possibilities, trusting that there will be endless opportunities in an endless amount of time for people to say yes to God.

As long as it takes, in other words.

At the heart of this perspective is the belief that, given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God's presence. The love of God will melt every hard heart, and even the most 'depraved sinners' will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God.

And so, beginning with the early church, there is a long tradition of Christians who believe that God will ultimately restore everything and everybody, because Jesus says in Matthew 19 that there will be a 'renewal of all things,' Peter says in Acts 3 that Jesus will 'restore everything' and Paul says in Colossians 1 that through Christ 'God was pleased to...reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven.'"

Let's start with the scripture:

Matthew 19: I just read it and that mini quote is no where to be found, but this is verse 29:

"And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life."

Acts 3:

18 "But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that this Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. 19 Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, 21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. 22Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. 23 And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.' 24 And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. 25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.' 26 God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness."

I don't know if "restore everything" and "restoring all the things about which God spoke" are the same thing, or if Mr. Bell just took two words out of a passage that doesn't mean what he thinks or wants it to mean. Bottom line is that Paul is far two clear about salvation, especially in Acts 4, for us to jump to universalism from two words that Mr. Bell took out of context in Acts 3.

Colossians 1:

15 "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning,the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister."

Does Mr. Bell not look at verse 23? It is far too easy to refute universalism with the actual sections of scripture that Mr. Bell uses himself to try to prove universalism.

So help me here folks. How is Mr. Bell not teaching universalism? I don't believe these early church fathers Mr. Bell refers to, or Martin Luther would agree with Mr. Bell on his takes in scripture. But if they did I would look at them as unbiblical as well. I don't think any of us should ever place someone on Christ's throne. If someone believes something that is contrary to the gospel and scripture then they are a false teacher.