Tod Bolsinger

Everything GodblogCon--up to the minute

http://www.technorati.com/search/godblogcon

This site will give you every up to the minute link on the GodBlogCon.  I thoroughly enjoyed putting many faces to their blogs today.  Thanks to John Mark Reynolds, Matt Anderson and the whole Torrey Honors Institute for their hospitality.

GodConBlog 2005 in the Media

The GodBlogCon 2005 is getting some interesting attention.  Hugh Hewitt will be broadcasting live from the conference here starting momentarily and Fox News has already covered it in an online article.

Tonight at 7 PM I will be on a panel moderated by Hewitt with Dr. John Mark Reynolds and Dr. Mark Roberts.  Those guys are really smart.  I feel a little like Linda McCartney in Paul McCartney's old Wings band.  (That'll date me a bit.)

GodConBlog 2005: Live Blogging

This is the first time I have ever posted IN THE MIDDLE of something...(It feels kind of rude to be writing as someone is talking, but I like to think of this as "taking notes publicly" for my friends who can't be here. So here goes..).

This morning, Mark Roberts led us in a devotional on Colossians 3:12-17 and doing everything including blogging for the glory of God. That was followed immeditaley by the Biola University Dean of Humanities gave us a great quote from Dostoevsky:All ways are his ways.”

In the first plenary discussion, we have already heard some good "food for thought".  What is clear to me so far is that we bloggers see blogging as part of our vocations:  (as Frederick Buechner would define it: The intersection of what I most need to do and what the world most needs to have done.)

At the moment, there is a lot of discussion about blogging and community... Of course, I am very interested in this one...

More later...

Don't DO Good...

Once I read where a pastor said that the best prayer he ever heard was: “Dear God, please make me into the kind of person that my dog thinks that I am.” 

I don’t know about you, but that about sums up my desire also.  Most of you know that I have a big St. Bernard named, Huge.  He’s now a big old slobbery mouthed dog.  When he was a pup and I would come home from work at the end of the day, that dog would turn into a 150-pound toy poodle, wagging his tale, spinning in circles, wiggling his rear end.  He’d do a doggy tap-dance for joy—all just because of me. 

Now, he lifts his old head, gives his tail a little wag and says to me, “Glad your home, dude. Cool.” 

Actually coming home to my house is particularly great, not only because of Huge, but my kids always shout out my name, "Hi Dad!"  Even my junior higher son likes to see me! And my younger daughter runs to me, mugging me with love.  I have to tell you friends, that a lot of my motivation in life is being the kind of person that my dog thinks I am, the kind of person who my kids will both respect and love to be around, the kind of person that I see reflected in my wife eyes when we see each other at the end fo the day. 

The truth is that I really want to be a good person.  Wouldn’t you say the same? 

The truth is that I want to become the kind of person that my God has made me to be.  God has not made us to be religious perfectionists, doing everything “technically” correct.  He has made us to to be like him.  That deep desire in our hearts to be good is actually to be good-like-God good, inside and out. 

Some of us may have to admit that we are, at heart, Pharisees.  Sure we never murder, we are not unfaithful to our spouses, we don’t technically lie to anyone,  we may even be good moral people, but unless we live out the Kingdom righteousness that comes from a Kingdom heart and leads us to be transformed into the very likeness of God—then we are not living as God’s people.

So here is my charge and challenge to you: Don’t do good, be God’s.

This is the secret of the Kingdom: The only way to be truly good—good like God, good—Kingdom-transformed good—is not to focus on being good, it is to focus on belonging to God.  In every part of your being giving more and more over to the one who will make you more and more like him.

"You are from another World"

Last spring I spent a weekend at a conference in the hill country of Texas.  I met a kind and friendly group of people who genuinely exhibited a comfortable hospitality.  Throughout the weekend we were welcomed with warmth and laughter and friendship.  It was really nice.

One night at dinner Beth and I talked with a young couple and we compared notes about the differences between California and Texas and they told me this story.  One of their friends had moved to Austin from the Bay Area and after only a couple of weeks in their new neighborhood, the wife had to go out of town leaving the husband at home for a few days with his two young children.  One of the boys slipped and cracked his head open in the kitchen.  Blood pouring all over the place, one boy crying and another upset at the sight of blood, he called the paramedics. 

They of course came, bandaged up the boy, assured the dad that he only needed some stitches and sent the Dad and the two boys off to the hospital.

When they returned a few hours later, they found to their shock that the EMT who had come to the house and bandaged the wound, also cleaned the house.  Not only all the blood, but even cleaned up the kitchen.  On top of that he went to the neighbors and let them know what happened.  By the time the formerly Californian family had returned, the kitchen was cleaned, food was in the frig and two moms had left notes that they’d be glad to help with babysitting if he needed it.

The Dad said to his two new Texan friends, “A paramedic who does dishes and washes the floor?  Neighbors who just show up and help out.  This is so much different than San Francisco!  You Texans are from another world!” 

The woman telling me the story said with a shug, “You know what?  He thought that was really something special.  But for us, that’s just the way we live.” 

For my Texan friends, caring for your neighbors, making food, cleaning up and giving help is not something that you are supposed to do, it’s not even particularly special.  It’s just the way you live.  And so too the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:20-48. 

Most of the time when this passage is taught, it is offered as a list of new commandments, a list of rules where Jesus makes all the laws of the Old Testament even more difficult.  We think that he comes to us and says, “You think the Ten Commandments were hard?  Well get a load of what I am going to make you do!”

But that is not what’s happening here at all.  Jesus is not giving a list of things to do, he is illustrating the kinds of people we are to become. 

Let me say this as clearly as possible:   

As we learn some of the specific behaviors that Jesus teaches us in the Sermon on the Mount: Our goal is NOT to do these things.  It is to become the kind of person who does these things by heart. Our goal is to become the kinds of people who naturally live our lives in such a way that someone would say to us, “Oh my, you guys are from another world.”  And we would shrug and answer, “Oh, that’s just the way we live.”

In Matthew 5:20-48 there is an opening phrase, six illustrations and a conclustion.  Most of the time people focus on the illustrations.  But I would tell you that the key is focusing on the very last phrase: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Our goal is to be like God, by being with Jesus. Jesus didn't come to bring new teaching, he came to be the new TEACHER.  ("But I say to you...")

And being with Jesus as our teacher will make us into people who are like God...from another world.

The Lord and His Prayer

This excerpt from the NT Wright's book, The Lord and His Prayer, (originally printed in CT) is fitting food for thought for our studies as we begin to turn towards the Lord's Prayer passage in the Sermon on the Mount.  (Pastors who are already thinking and praying about upcoming Christmas services might find the whole article helpful, too.)

If Jesus is the true King of all the world, whose kingdom redefines power and glory so that they are now seen in the manger, on the cross, and in the garden, then to pray "Thy kingdom come" from the Lord's Prayer is to ask that this kingdom, this power, and this glory may be seen in all the world. It is not enough, though it is the essential starting point, that we submit in our own lives to God's alternative kingdom-vision; we must pray and work for the vision to come in reality, with the rulers of this world being confronted with the claims of their rightful King.   (N.T. Wright)

God and Pop Culture at GodBlogCon

GodBlogCon 05 is just a few days away and the hard working sponsors at Biola University have announced another interesting seminar to add to the mix: God and Pop Culture.  If you can't make the whole conference, the Friday Night Panel Discussion moderated by Hugh Hewitt is open to the public and there is a special Saturday only price as well.   

I hope to meet many of you fellow bloggers and blog-readers.

This is me...

...in my mind...this week. 

The Blog will be light this week because I am spending four days suffering for Jesus with a group of guys from the church on a bike trip through the central coast. 

I'll be biking about 200 miles, leading the devotionals and taking a lot of good natured ribbing from some retirees who refuse to act their age.  (I really do love my job.)

At the end of the week I'll be going to GodBlogCon O5 and then back to the church on Sunday to continue my series on Becoming a Kingdom Community.

The Promise

 

Sunset in San Clemente