Yeah, I feel the same way.

This is a beautiful time lapse of Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull on May 1st & 2nd set to the sound of former Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi by Sean Stiegemeier.

Here are some pretty remarkable principles for how to start a movement…

I’m thankful for the crazies that have stood next to me to begin something new here in the city of San Francisco. Here’s to our movement!

Sebastian Wernicke showed up at TED Active in Southern California to reverse engineer the most successful and disastrously awful TED talks around in the hopes of finding the formula for creating the best TED Talk possible… What’s interesting about his talk is how much truth is embedded within the talk from appearance (slightly better dressed than average, glasses, longer than average hair), to using more positive than average language, to the visual mood the presenter creates using color… these seem to be not only traits of good TED Talks, but of any presenter anywhere. We’re more apt to listen to the guy/girl that looks cool, that pumps us up with positive language and uses colors that stimulate our visual cortex than we are the sloppy looking dude that looks like he just rolled out of bed, is angry and doesn’t use anything visual at all.

So, what does this look like in preaching? What does this look like in reciting poetry or any public presentation? If you want to be liked follow these specific lists/rules?

I wonder what the perfect sermon construct would look like if it were reverse engineered like this… and could it still be called a sermon?

Who am I?

I am…
I am thirty years old. I am married to a beautiful woman whom sometimes I wonder if I truly deserve. I am a child of two parents who sacrificed much and worked hard to give me a future because they believed in me more than I believed in myself.

I am the grandson of a city bus driver, World War II infantry veteran, Cubs fan, nurturer and hard worker who have taught me the importance of family and a CPA and a law clerk who’s belief and service to God has changed my life—I’ll never forget the day my grandfather stopped me and looked deep into my eyes to say, “Aaron, I pray for you every single day… I just want you to know that.” … I am scared. I am scared of the day that he passes away and I am scared as to whether or not someone else will pick up that banner of faithful prayer for my life like he has.

I am an older brother to someone who has far more talent and creativity in his left pinky than I have in my entire being; who has modeled to me the posture of silence and humility and who continually teaches me what loyalty and faithfulness look like.

I am…
I am in love with children, yet I am terrified of failing as a father. I am too selfish and too impatient to slow down long enough to see the beauty that surrounds my life, let alone share that with a life that I am entrusted to teach and to love… to care for and show the world to.

I am…
I am defined by a lot of different adjectives that seem to capture bits and pieces of my personality and inner being from time to time, but I lack the consistency to truly be called humble, intelligent, fun-loving, courageous, loving, and whatever other designations have been bestowed. I am wrought with pride and a healthy sense of ego; which causes a downfall of intelligence and short circuits fun. I am all too often filled with fear; which makes me feel more like a little boy than anything courageous. I am consistent at being inconsistent.

I am…
I am a crier. I find tears welling up in my eyes as music comes to a crescendo with a happy ending or a touching scene… I hate that I am a crier… and I hate that I hate that I am a crier.

I am a pastor to my friends who are scattered around the country and uncertain where the inner strength comes from to walk through the valleys of tragedy and relational dissolution that have become all to common. I am a pastor to a new community here in this beautiful city that challenges me and pushes me and stretches me to look deeper in, further out, and higher up.

I am…
I am scared of failure. I am scared of failing my friends, of disappointing my family, of failing you… and although this fear keeps me up nights, I am mostly scared of failing God… of gazing upon His face only to be met with his disappointment at what could have been. And perhaps that’s because I am a dreamer.

I am a person who has big dreams for what is possible and what could be. I am an eternal optimist, a person who always sees the glass as ¾ full and I am hard pressed to see the challenges in any situation as insurmountable.

I am… but really, who am I?

I’ve heard it said that mankind is really a composition of cells that regenerate over and over again… that their rate of regeneration changes the entire physical makeup of who you are every moment… that the person that stands here today is not the same as the twelve year old boy from 1991. All of those cells have been flushed in favor of brand new ones. My physical makeup is ever changing… and every three months the body generates a brand new skeleton…

I’ve heard it said, “I think therefore I am.” And although my existence has never come into question I do wonder who it is that inhabits this existence. I wonder who I am at the most profoundly human level and I am curious about this identity that I supposedly carry around, yet am unable to discover succinctly enough to truly understand myself.

This question of identity is at the base of all philosophical discourse, for to grasp it, to hold it tightly, to truly understand of our identity would allow for us to walk through every situation on this playground of life with the utmost grace as we see the bigger picture on full display. Perhaps that’s why Jesus is so attractive. His was a life that is fully connected to his humanity, to the very core of his being… It’s no wonder that when we are faced with disappointment at a job loss, a failure in a relationship, a grandiose mistake caused by our own carelessness, or are shaken to the core with grief… this question rushes to the forefront of our being. Who am I? Who am I, really?

It is when we are faced with these, the moments of the catastrophic, that we find out who we are on the most profoundly human level.

It was the 5th century philosopher Augustine that remarked, “I am a mystery to myself.” Perhaps it is time for us to explore that mystery and find out who we really are.

I’m sure that somewhere in the past I’ve posted this or linked to this video but I can’t help it. I have never been moved by poetry more, I have never been forced into longer moments of reflection and found myself more comfortable in the silence that follows than after listening to this piece….

It’s been an exciting 6 months for us as a community as we have grown faster than we anticipated and are launching Families sooner than we thought! Our team has done a tremendous job of getting everything set and squared away as we venture into a new reality together as a community. I couldn’t be more proud of this team and of our community for how passionately we’re embracing the Jesus mission in the city of San Francisco!

Here’s a short video that was put together by one of the artists within our community that explains just what a Family is all about… (man, we have some talented artists!)

Created as a collaboration between World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Ben Lee and Leo Burnett, “Space Monkey” carries a message about our planet, and features Ben Lee’s track, “Song for the Divine Mother of the Universe”.

This is a pretty interesting ad by the World WIldlife Fund that causes us to think about what the planet look like if we were to spend the next 65 years in space and then return…

Often times in the church our response to ads like this, or even a conversation about taking care of the planet is “This world is not my home, I’m just passin’ on through,” and we discard or disregard our communal responsibility to the resources that God has given us. Our poor theology has given us license to participate in the continual cycle of destroying the beauty within the world that God has created for us to enjoy.

Going green seems to be a new fad within our country (perhaps because evangelicalism has lost its grip on culture). In years past the month of April has been dedicated to celebrating green living by networks such as NBC by changing their logo green and doing more PSA’s to raise awareness of sustainable living within the world. But I wonder if it’s really changing the dialogue within our culture. I have the privilege of living in the second “greenest city” in the United States, San Francisco, just a smidgen behind Portland, Oregon as the greenest. Everywhere you turn there are recycling bins, compost bins, solar power, green spaces, rooftop gardens, etc… it’s at the forefront of conversation within our city. However, whenever I take a trip anywhere outside SF I find the conversation to be non-existent. Is “Earth Month” really doing much?

I think a lot of the challenge or resistance to this dialogue is as a result of our theology as a church (even though evangelicalism has lost its grip on culture, in a great majority of the country the reverberations of dominance are still being felt). This is a topic of conversation that the church should be leading the way in, yet our “evacuation theology”–this world is not my home, I’m just passing on through–causes us to be poor stewards of what God has gifted us and in turn push the conversation to the fringe as unimportant… If this conversation will gain any traction throughout the Church and if the Church is to lead the way, we must first move away from this “evacuation theology” narrative and towards the narrative of Scripture. We must move away from our understanding of the earth as resource to be used and abused because it’s going to be destroyed and begin to see it as a precious gift that God gave to us to reveal himself to us. I wonder what it would look like for us (the church) to change this conversation, to change our narrative and lead the way?

Something to think about: If God used General Revelation to communicate to us his presence and love (the use of nature and natural means outside of Scripture), then why would it not be a good thing to preserve this method of communication for future generations–not to mention ourselves?

Last week I had the opportunity to join with over 3,000 church planters down in Orlando, Florida for the annual Exponential Conference. It was a good time of networking and connecting with people from all over the country, hearing their stories of triumph and defeat, excitements and challenges. Coming together like this as a community who are on a similar path is extremely valuable to anyone in the preparation stage or early stages of planting a church.

During the conference, it seemed that at every turn, with every speaker and each of the breakout sessions the “topic” of the Holy Spirit was mentioned, sometimes in great detail. (It was nice to hear the Holy Spirit show up in conversations and presentations not being used as a weapon to win an argument or make a point.) It seems as if the Church is having an easier time talking about the mystical nature of the Holy Spirit even if we don’t necessarily know what to do with Him/Her. Yet, at each turn it seemed as if there was a “silo affect” taking place in our approach to the Holy Spirit. It seems that we, as the Church have become fairly comfortable with two separate trains of thought, or silos, that we use to understand the Holy Spirit and yet we never allow these two thoughts to merge into a more holistic reality of who He/She is and how He/She works.

One of the stated categorizations that is perhaps more well known because of how outspoken its proponents are is that Holy Spirit works and it’s our job to join in where the Holy Spirit is working. There’s nothing wrong with this statement but the application of this statement is less than desirable. In this silo, the Christian’s responsibility is to simply wander around aimlessly, with no strategy, no plan, no ideation and simply hope to stumble upon where the Spirit was moving. (This idea was blatantly visible in a couple of breakouts that I attended.) Although there can be some tremendously good experiences and benefits that can grow from this mode of understanding–faithfulness, follower-ship, a submissive spirit–it removes responsibility of the mind from the follower. The Christian, therefore becomes a mindless wanderer hoping to stumble onto the movement of God. Secondarily, we find that the Holy Spirit is already working without the activity of humanity and our participation is voluntary at best and unnecessary at worst (especially if you have a high view of the sovereignty of God.)

The second silo that was evident is the exact reverse. This silo gives more credit to humanity than it does to the Holy Spirit. In this stated silo, the mind of man with strategies and planning, a heavy sense of responsibility for success, is in the forefront. This mode of thinking places a tremendous sense of responsibility on the Christian to go out and do your best with the best thinking that you have at your disposal and in the midst of the “task” simply hope and pray that the Holy Spirit will bless it. This is more of a Type A personality approach to the Holy Spirit. Just lead and “hope” the Spirit follows. This approach relegates the Holy Spirit to an after-thought. The dilemma: If what we’re doing is working, then why is the Holy Spirit necessary? The Holy Spirit’s only role then is to catalyze an already existent human idea. Blessing, therefore is seen as catalyzing a good idea–any idea that fails was obviously a bad idea according to the Holy Spirit’s standard no matter how good it may seem on paper or in practice.

As we continue to transition out of modernism as the church, it seems that we’re still maintaining a categorization approach to our theology. We are still more comfortable with an either/or approach, especially when its in regards to the Holy Spirit. (I wonder if this may have more to do with the schism that’s prevalent between the Charismatic/Pentecostal movement and everyone else.) This is grievously unfortunate when understanding the Holy Spirit.

Jim Collins unveiled for the world in his book Good to Great the valuable and important slogan “The Genius of the And” whereby two seemingly contradictory or incompatible ideas or methods somehow find their way together to create an even stronger or more powerful idea than previously possible. The two silos that the Church is working from needs to be blended together under the moniker of “And” so that we can enjoy a more holistic and fuller understanding of not only who the Holy Spirit is, but how the Holy Spirit works.

Since the beginning of the 1900′s with the reemergence of Charismatic Christianity we have worked hard to entrench ourselves into one of these two silos of understanding in regards to the Holy Spirit. We’ve worked hard to nail down the Holy Spirit to one particular form of working or another. (In fact, it seems as if we’ve treated the Holy Spirit more as an object rather than a subject.) What’s truly interesting about this approach is that I don’t think it’s possible to truly nail down the Holy Spirit to one of these silos. I woud argue that the Holy Spirit will do what he/she wants, when/where he/she wants to do it, to whomever or through whomever he/she wants, however he/she wishes!

It’s when we try and silo the Holy Spirit that we miss out on a great deal of possibilities not only in our own lives, but in the life of the Church. I truly wonder what a holistic understanding of the Spirit looks like, how a truly blended ideation of these two silos functions and what else beyond the two understandings we’re missing out on as the Spirit works throughout the Church and beyond…

Can someone please explain to me why this commercial is so funny?

Everytime this commercial makes its way onto the television I find myself beginning with a light chuckle that ultimately ends in out loud laughter and I don’t know why… I mean, look at it… it’s just funny! Does anyone know why? What’s great about this is that I know it’s not just me that laughs uncontrollably. I’ve had conversations with friends who also react strongly to this commercial… any thoughts?

Whoever is their marketing director and did the research for this commercial is a genius!