Scott Bane dot Com

Valley of Dry Bones

Scott Bane — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:11:20 +0000

This is a full-length (40 min) message out of Ezekiel 37. I was going to talk about this and how it relates to resurrection while in South Africa during Easter this year but never actually did. “Turn to Ezekiel 37,” became kind of a running joke there since I kept saying but never did read from it or talk about it. A friend asked if I would give that message that I never gave there, so here it is. If you’re seeing this on facebook, you’ll need to click the “original post” link to get to the embedded audio player.

Zoo Animal

Scott Bane — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:22:01 +0000

In this little “episode,” I’m talking about this little glimpse – this little taste of real freedom that I have and how I long for the ability to release it to other people. I know it’s possible and I want to experience myself and open myself so that Jesus can give it away to others too.

Receiving Spaghetti-Os

Scott Bane — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:25:15 +0000

I’m learning a huge lesson from an experience over lunch with my six year old son, Luke. If you’re looking at this on facebook – it doesn’t pick up the embedded audio. Click the “View Original Post” link below and you’ll find the audio.

This One’s With Me

Scott Bane — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:18:25 +0000

Another audio note – this one on the transformational value in realizing that God doesn’t distance himself from me when I’m screwing everything up. If you’re looking at this on facebook – it doesn’t pick up the embedded audio. Click the “View Original Post” link below and you’ll find the audio.

Jesus Had Friends

Scott Bane — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 08:09:55 +0000

This is a thought I’ve been stuck on for quite a while now. Just a short audio note I hope that you get a little something from. If you’re looking at this on facebook – it doesn’t pick up the embedded audio. Click the “View Original Post” link below and you’ll find the audio.

This Is The Day

Scott Bane — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:08:10 +0000

Here’s another quick audio note on a recent meditation of mine. Hope it does you some good. If you’re looking at this on facebook – it doesn’t pick up the embedded audio. Click the “View Original Post” link below and you’ll find the audio.

Putting the Computer Together

Scott Bane — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:03:36 +0000

I’ve been thinking about posting some short audio files here and just trying to open the door to the things I’m thinking as we set out on this church plant. So in the spirit of ‘Git R Done,” here’s one. The audio quality is not great. Sorry about that. I hope it’s not too distracting and I’ll make some improvements so that it’s at least a little louder. If you’re looking at this on facebook – it doesn’t pick up the embedded audio. Click the “View Original Post” link below and you’ll find the audio.

Meditations

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 06:23:40 +0000

Most people with blogs that never update them don’t write because they can’t think of anything (I think). My problem seems to be that I’m thinking about everything. \n\nDon’t live as though you have God all figured out. That’s one of the things that I’ve been thinking about. I am amazed at how much I do that. About 5 years ago I was struck with the thought and began seeing people all throughout Scripture that had their vision of God blown away by The Real Thing. About 2 years ago I picked up a “glad that’s over” attitude on the subject – as if I no longer had the problem of living as though I have God figured out. Turns out, it ain’t over. I am revisiting these lessons and meditations. He is still unwraveling my assumptions and the falsehoods I’ve believed and the shortcuts I’ve taken in place of really knowing him. \n\nI don’t know yet how to really be free. That’s something else I think about all the time. Again, a few years ago a liberation started to take place. So I’ve looked around with compassion and sometimes angst at people who do not seem to realize that their religion has placed them in a cage. “You’re not in a cage!” I want to shout at them. But now I’m realizing that I’m like one of those animals that has been let out of a zoo. I am no longer behind the bars and I know it but I still pace back and forth. Only covering the same tiny space as my former enclosure. I know I’m free but I do not yet know how to live within the full space he has given me. \n\nIf all the props that I used to think connected me to God were removed would I have anything left with him? Would we have anything to talk about? This is an old one but another that keeps coming back to me and occupies my mind at night. I once read something from Irwin McManus about God leading a revolt against the religion that he started. What if that’s what he’s doing again? In our day. What if all the people that Christians think are “running from God” are actually being chased by him? Have we painted God into such a corner that the only way he can get to the people the church has left unaffected is to rebel against it? Maybe he is telling us “tear all this stuff down and I’ll build it again in three days.” And we are shouting “blasphemy,” and trying to find a way to get rid of him so we go back to “normal” and do things the way we like to. \n\nJesus had friends. I’m blown away by this. I can’t stop thinking about it. Given the severity of his misson and the scope of the change he needed to bring, friends seem like they would be a waste of time. With 3 years to spend, Jesus invested himself in a really tiny group of people. From Acts we might say that only 120 people really knew him. If we go by the Gospels, it would seem a lot less than that even. If God sent me somewhere with the task of bringing thousands to him I don’t think I would have handled it like Jesus. It seems that he saw a few authentic relationships with him as the appropriate container for the thousands that would come to know him through them. I don’t think he has changed his strategy over time. If you can get a few people togeher who are truly serious about knowing Jesus, those relationships can provide the structure for something that can grow infinitely large. \n\nThese are a few of my thoughts lately, not everything but I’ve got to save some stuff for 6 months from now when I finally post again

It’s Our Fault

Scott Bane — Sat, 02 May 2009 14:55:36 +0000

Recently, I watched this video of a panel discussion / debate titled, Does the God of Christianity Exist and Why Does it Matter? It was sponsored and put on by a Christian publisher and it featured one atheist, Christopher Hitchens, author of god Is Not Great, and three Christian apologists (the only name I recognized was Lee Strobel). To say that watching the discussion left me frustrated is a severe understatement.

Mr. Hitchens, in answer to the first question posed to him, raised the issue of human suffering and specifically talked about the gut wrenching recent news story of the Austrian man who imprisoned his own daughter for more than 26 years, subjecting her and the children he fathered with her to unimaginable horror in an underground dungeon. The implications being, if there is a good and loving God somewhere up there, how could this evil inflicted upon such purely innocent people be explained?

I’m sure you know that each of the Christians on the panel had well thought and well articulated responses to the problem of innocent suffering and a loving God. I’ve heard all those before, and so have you. No one said anything I disagree with. In my opinion nobody handles the questions and complications of suffering better than C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain, and his infinitely more personal story of A Grief Observed. I’ve read both of those books more than once. So the guys on the panel certainly weren’t saying anything new and weren’t even saying it as well as I’ve heard it before – but that’s not what bothered me this time. I couldn’t escape the emptiness of the whole argument. Mr. Hitchens raises the raw human horror of a particular story and these guys start talking about free will and God’s desire to have people who “choose to love him.”

Is that it? That’s what we want the suffering and the innocent of this world to know? We’re sorry you were subject to such hell and evil but God couldn’t stop it because that would have violated your monstrous beast of a father’s free will? People, believe me when I say that if that’s all we’ve got on the “Christian side of the argument,” I’m out!

My frustration over this debate and my prayer and meditation ever since I heard the story of the Austrian has convinced me that this is not “all we’ve got.” But the consequences have been painful. Bottom line: These horrors have happened on our watch – on my watch.

1 Peter 5 says that the devil is seeking whom he “may” devour. He’s seeking for permission – for access. Who may I subject to agony and pain and unthinkable suffering? I’m coming to grips with my own responsibility toward humanity. We are Christ’s ambassadors – representatives given authority to establish his kingdom to the ends of the earth. In his kingdom, these things do not happen. But the keys of this kingdom have been given to us. We blew it!

I think that Nehemiah 1:6 provides us with the Christian response to suffering; “…Both my father’s house and I have sinned.” We have sinned. Access was given to the destroyer because the kingdom in which he has no power was not established in these places. The way we have been given of establishing that kingdom is repentance. Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.

Hear me: I’m not saying that this horror took place because no one came to this Austrian and said, “Repent of your sins or you’ll go to hell.” Read Nehemiah again. I and my fathers have sinned. These horrors have occurred because I remain unrepentant. God has given us his kingdom in a mystery. I don’t know how my repentance establishes his kingdom, but I know that’s what does it.

2 Chronicles 7:14 “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

We do the humbling. We do the praying and the seeking. We repent of our wicked ways. Then he does the forgiving and the healing of the land. Instead of some academic debate about free will and God’s sovereignty, I long for someone to fall on his knees before Christopher Hitchens and say:

You are absolutely right! This is unacceptable. Please forgive me… on behalf of all Christians given the authority to establish Jesus’ kingdom, I repent as one who was taught to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is heaven.” I confess that I have failed to establish God’s kingdom in this situation. This never should have happened. Evil should have never been given this kind of access. Please forgive me.

I don’t know if that would have made a difference to Christopher Hitchens or not. It might not have changed his outlook or his worldview at all. That’s not the point.

Kingdom

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:33:05 +0000

The kingdom has been in all my meditation lately. Mark 4 is keeping me up at night – just laying in bed and thinking about what Jesus said in that one passage of Scripture. Mark 4:32 says that when Jesus was alone with the disciples, he explained everything to them. That’s what I’m after.

In this pursuit, I feel like he’s changing my mind about “alone time” with him. What if it’s more like Proverbs 3 (in all your ways acknowledge him) than it is long stretches of laboring in prayer? I’m not saying that prayer is unimportant, but I am thinking about it differently. Obviously Jesus spent time praying – early mornings, sleepless nights, but it is interesting to me that his disciples did not. When they actually asked him to teach them how to pray, he gave them a 30 second prayer. When the Pharisees kibitzed because Jesus’ disciples did not fast, he defended them by saying that they didn’t need to worry about that while he was with them.

These are just some thoughts… when you spend your life in the service of others, I think this “alone time” and solitude becomes more and more important. But what if prayer could be a lot more like acknowledging his presence with us and engaging in the ongoing conversation throughout the day?