CaffeinatedLife's Xanga

Monday, August 21, 2006

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 12:10:41 GMT

Caffeinated Life - Episode 6

Keep it hot (or cold)

As much as I love coffee, I’m not able to stomach lukewarm coffee. For some reason, it just doesn’t seem to go down. I like my coffee piping hot – barely drinkable. Some people (especially in warmer parts of the country) like it iced. But I don’t know anyone who likes lukewarm, room-temperature coffee. The thought of trying to get the stuff down makes me gag!

I’m sure most of you can see where I’m going here. The spiritual parallel is pretty obvious.

Revelation 3:15-16
"I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, I will spit you out of my mouth!”

The NLT takes it easy on us by using the word “spit” although that is still pretty strong. The actual translation is closer to “spew” or “vomit”. Living a lukewarm Christian life turns God’s stomach.

Now any of you reading this who are like me - in that I like to analyze everything - would have a problem with this passage. You see, I could never figure out why Jesus would want any Christian to be cold in their relationship with him. Cold brings to mind words like distant, turned-off, and lifeless. Hot, sure I could understand that. Who wouldn't want to be fired-up in their relationship with God? But cold? No way! So I did a little research into this passage.

It turns out that the city of Laodicea was located along a main Roman thoroughfare, so it was highly trafficked. It was one of the most influential cities in the empire due to its extreme affluence. They had a booming textile industry and had made significant breakthroughs in early forms of opthamology - including a healing salve to put on the eyes. The main thing the city lacked was a fresh water source. The only source of water it had was from hot springs many miles away. By the time the water would get to the city, it was tepid, lukewarm, and very unpleasant. Cold water was refreshing and invigorating. Hot water from the springs was medicinal and was known to bring relief for a variety of illnesses. But lukewarm water was absolutely worthless – it had no value. More than that, it was downright unpleasant!

God doesn't want anyone to be distant from Him - He never intended this passage to even intimate that. What God does want is for His body to be full of life and ready to be used by Him as light and salt in this world. Believers who are useless to God turn the stomach of God! So what could cause us to slide into "useless" territory? Let's look back at a Scripture from the last blog entry...

Titus 1:15-16
“Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure. But nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, because their minds and consciences are defiled. Such people claim they know God, but they deny him by the way they live. They are despicable and disobedient, worthless for doing anything good.”

Keep the filters up and you will have a good start. Let me give you a couple other areas to keep watch over (taken from a sermon I heard a few years ago from Herbert Cooper)

Several things will cause a Christian to slide into lukewarm territory:

Moral compromise

Lack of a devotional life

Lack of church attendance

Allowing sin to stay in your life

Losing an others-focused life

Stay close to the fire. Live where things are happening. Turn up the heat on your relationship with God and live life far from the lukewarm.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 11:01:15 GMT

Caffeinated Life - Episode 5

Use a good filter

Until I started making my own coffee, I never realized how important the filter is. Some coffee purists say that paper filters give an undesirable taste to the coffee and recommend a gold, permanent filter when brewing. Others say the exact opposite, that paper is less offensive. Still others say that using a French press gives the best coffee flavor (my personal choice) and use the filter built into the press. In any case, the filter keeps the grounds from getting into your coffee and making it nasty.

It is essential in our spiritual lives to have a filter in place as well. A filter to keep impurities and garbage from entering our lives.

Titus 1:15-16
“Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure. But nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving, because their minds and consciences are defiled. Such people claim they know God, but they deny him by the way they live. They are despicable and disobedient, worthless for doing anything good.”

This is one of those passages of Scripture that you read or hear and kind of wince, because God hits us right between the eyes with the truth. When our minds and consciences are defiled, we become worthless for doing anything good. And if we are not constantly examining (filtering) the content we are allowing into our lives, we are not going to be living lives that are pleasing to God. Scripture goes so far as to call these people despicable and worthless. Ouch. All the more reason to have a good filter in place.

In a culture that is increasingly media dependant, we need to be wary of media culture when it comes to our relationship with God. We need to examine the music, the movies, the television, and the Internet content that we willingly subject ourselves to. Now I’m not going to tell you watch this, but don’t watch this. Listen to this, but don’t listen to this. That would be legalism. I believe God gave us a conscience for a reason, that we would use it!

All I ask is that you would write down this next Scripture on a 3x5 card or use a dry erase marker and write it on your bathroom mirror. Put it somewhere prominent, and use this as your filter for your life.

Philippians 4:8
“Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

Let that be the filter that you place on our heart, on your mind, on your soul. In every area, be constantly asking yourself, "Is this true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and worthy of praise?" If the answer is, "Yes," then you should be in safe territory. If not, you might want to re-examine the media diet you're on.

Set an example for the people God has placed in your life. You are leaders! Be able to say as Paul did to the church at Corinth…

1 Corinthians 11:1
“Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ.”

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 16:33:41 GMT

Caffeinated Life - Episode 4

Make it fresh daily

Up to this point, we've been talking about the dangers of not living Caffeinated Christianity. We're switching gears a little bit now and I'm going to focus on the steps we need to take to stay caffeinated. In this episode - make it fresh daily. Few things are more distasteful to me as day-old coffee, except for maybe two-day-old coffee. The longer a pot of coffee sits, the fouler it becomes!

Starbucks goes so far as to put its coffee on timers. After one hour has passed, whether one cup has been served from the pot or it has nearly been drained, they toss it and brew it fresh. Why? They are that concerned that every customer coming into the store has the freshest coffee experience possible. The question I have then is this, if Starbucks is so concerned with keeping its coffee fresh and is willing to throw out the old stuff just to make sure it is the freshest possible, why are we willing to go days or sometimes weeks without spending time with God and keep our relationship with Him fresh?

In Ephesians 5:18, Paul gives us the command to “Be filled with the Spirit.” This is one of those occasions where the translation comes up short due to the differences in English and Biblical Greek. A better way of saying what Paul was trying to get across is to “Always be being filled.” In other words, don’t let the pot get stale. Make it fresh every day!

And it's not just going to affect you - OTHER people will be affected when you don’t have a regular experience with God. By not having a fresh experience with God on a daily basis, you are not just causing your relationship with God to suffer, but also affecting friends, accountability partners, people you are mentoring, and people you are reaching out to. If you are not fresh, how can expect to be the influencer that God has called you to be?

In the words of Rob Bell, "Is what you are giving being scraped off the bottom or poured off the top?"

Monday, June 05, 2006

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:33:08 GMT

I'm back.

After two (or more) months away, I have returned to the land of Xanga and also to my podcast (for those who are involved in both arenas). I will have a new podcast releasing this Friday. If you've never been a part of Casting Influence, check it out at the website.

The last few months have seen the arrival of our new baby, Hannah Grace Kossack, the completion of and moving in to our new home, and LOTS of travel.

But the chaos has come to an end and tomorrow will see the release of a new, real blog entry, and not just the "Here I am - back from the dead" variety.

See you then...

Friday, March 31, 2006

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 13:11:31 GMT

Caffeinated Life - Episode 3

You may not even know the difference!

As much of a coffee connoisseur as I like to think that I am, you can put a cup of decaf and a cup of coffee in front of me, and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the two just by drinking them. How can you tell then? You have to wait and see the results. You have to see if there is any effect. You may be living a decaffeinated Christian life. You may be living a life without power and without influence, but you may not even realize it. So how can we tell? What do we have to do to find out? You can tell by your fruit. What is it that is coming out of your life? Are you rubbing off on others, or are they rubbing off on you? Do you have the caffeination effect on the lives you come in contact with?

Is the fruit of the Spirit evident in your life? Melissa (my beautiful wife) from time to time decides to take a risk and send me to the grocery store. Usually this is a final option type of situation, but occasionally she will let me go. She doesn’t let me go on a regular basis for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I always come back with things we don’t need. I think guys do this a lot. Although we may think we’re more practical in other areas, when it comes to food, I at least tend to be pretty impulsive. It’s not uncommon for me to hear as Melissa is looking over my purchases, “But Honey, we don’t need rocky road ice cream and caramel topping, and we certainly don’t need four bags of jalapeno potato chips.” Incidentally, I very rarely tend to “overbuy” in the area of healthy foods. But the other reason she doesn’t like me to go is that I don’t have the best judgment. Take fruit for example. Selecting the right fruit is not one of my strong suits. She could send be to the store to get a couple of oranges. Of course, in my mind, the biggest oranges must be the best oranges, so I’ll pick up two big ‘ole oranges. These things make grapefruits insecure. Then when I get them home, we cut into them, and there is no juice, no “meat” to the fruit. It’s all white junk with none of the good stuff. But from the outside, they looked fantastic!

And here is my point. A lot of Christians can look good on the outside. They can do the right things, and act the right way, and say the right words. Jesus looked at the Pharisees and saw this kind of God-follower. In fact, he referred to them as "whitewashed tombs," looking good on the outside, but only death is within. So how do you really know if the good stuff is inside? Not until what’s inside is forced to come out. With fruit, this is when they get squeezed. In similar fashion, when we get squeezed, the real “us” starts to come out. When the pressure is on, when life gets hard, when our spouse or parents get on our nerves, when our parents are acting irrational, when our boss turns up the heat, when tragedy comes into our lives. It’s when things get hard and we get squeezed that we find out what we’re really made of.

Galatians 5:22-23
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

Is that what comes out of your life? You want to know how to tell if you are living a Caffeinated Christian life, filled with power, and ready to make a difference for Jesus? Examine your behavior when life throws you a curve. Is your life filled with fruit, or are you dry inside?

Philippians 1:11
“May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation – those good things that are produced in your life by Jesus Christ – for this will bring much glory and praise to God.”

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:05:39 GMT

Hey all. Taking a little break from the Caffeinated Life Series in order to let you know that...

HANNAH IS HERE! :)

Our newest child, Hannah Grace Kossack, was born this morning at 7:24 AM. Melissa and baby are doing fantastic and she is, of course, the most beautiful baby girl ever.

We now resume our regularly scheduled blog, already in progress.

EDIT: Apparently there are some who missed the fact that there were links in the above posting. Click on the words, Hannah Grace Kossack above (or here for that matter) and you will be able to view photos of the new arrival.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 17:18:24 GMT

Caffeinated Life - Episode 2

What is the point of decaf?

What really is the point of decaf coffee? I've never really understood it. Now, I'm not here to debate the health considerations of caffeine - that is for another forum. My point is, why drink it if it isn't going to pack a punch? Sure, I enjoy the flavor - now. But would I have started drinking it if it wasn't for the caffeine? I read a statistic that said that 78% of coffee drinkers began drinking coffee in college. Why? Does coffee have some sort of magical flavor on university campuses across our country? Do they have an initiation that incorporates consuming large quantities of a legal, addictive stimulant? No. It's because they needed to stay awake to study for finals, and Mountain Dew was making them fat.

It normally isn't about the taste. In fact, the first time most people taste coffee, their reaction goes something along the lines of, "Ugh. That tastes like dirt." For some reason, though, we keep drinking it, and some people grow to like the taste. But if it wasn't for the difference it made, would we have ever begun drinking it in the first place?

If God is not going to make a difference in your life, both now and in the life to come, what's the point? We were created to serve God. This lifetime is just the beginning as we have eternity waiting for us. We need to make a decision to serve God for the right reasons - not because it's going to make us happy, but because it's going to make a difference. God never promised us happiness. In fact, the promises with regards to the Christian life that we find in Scripture include persecution and hardships. God did, however, promise us joy. That means satisfaction that we don't derive from our circumstances or our surroundings - it comes from God, because He's making a difference in us.

Make sure that your Christian experience is caffeinated - that God is making a difference in you. Make sure there is a point to your faith.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Thu, 16 Mar 2006 12:39:20 GMT

So it has come to my attention that in the one-year-plus of Caffeinated Life, I have never dedicated an entry to the reason the blog is so named. Of course, I am a Starbucks junkie, but that is just a side benefit. There actually is an application that has some spiritual implications as well (although one could argue that a grande americano borders on a spiritual experience). Because it has taken over a year to get to this point, I am going to dedicate not just one entry, but an entire series of entries explaining the tie-in. So sit back, check back often, and enjoy the ride...

Caffeinated Life - Episode 1

Coffee and decaf. What's the difference? Sit them next to each other. They look the same. Take a sip from each. They taste the same. So what's the difference?

The difference is that one of them packs a punch. A cup of decaf will keep me warm on a cold, winter morning, but a cup of coffee will have that same effect plus get me going at the beginning of the day and keep me going for a while.

It has a lasting effect.

The question we need to ask ourselves is, "Are we living caffeinated Christian lives?" What are we doing with our faith? Do we make a difference in the people we come in contact with? Are we having a lasting effect? Or, do we look the part, but don't make a difference? Too many professing Christians know the right things to say, know the right things to do, and can play the part of Christian perfectly - but have no power in their lives. There is no influence flowing from them to their world. A caffeinated Christian will not only see the difference in their own life, but also in the lives of every person around them.

Matthew 5:13-16
"You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it useful again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world--like a city on a mountain, glowing in the night for all to see. Don't hide your light under a basket! Instead, put it on a stand and let it shine for all. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”

Stay tuned - more to come tomorrow...

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 11:45:06 GMT

Got this email from Connection Power, a site dealing with all issues pertaining to church growth and health, and thought is was worth commenting on. The author is talking about the current trend of churches operating in a multi-site capacity, and the ego-breaking that a pastor undergoes (this is a very good thing in my opinion) when ministering in this kind of setting. The article begins talking about a story where a celebrity athlete feels empty, even though he was being showered with praise from his fans. It goes on to say this...

Musings

God gave me a gift that day. I saw with my own eyes that no matter how many accolades I ever received from men and women it would never satisfy my soul. This is helpful, for the ministry can be a most ego seductive enterprise. From the first time to the last time you hear, "that was the best sermon I have ever heard," the road is filled with treacherous temptations for self absorption and subtle aggrandizement. An elder statesman on my pastoral staff, who had been a senior pastor for almost 50 years used to put it this way, "Don't be a fool like Sampson and believe your own press."

Multi-Site Implications

Rick Warren aptly puts his finger on a core ego issue for a church that is considering a transformation into a multi-site approach.
"The truth is, pastors are the only people who like huge services. Members put up with the large size because of the teaching, programs, and ministry opportunities offered. If they could find those things in a smaller church, no doubt they would be there, in my view. ."

Letting Go

The underlying issues of the multi-site approach are reminiscent of what I had to process when we shut down our big mid-week service and went to small groups that met throughout the week. I lost the emotional ego assurances of having a crowd in front of me every Wednesday. I consoled myself with the knowledge that more real ministry was happening in small settings across the city by others. I decreased. Successful ministers have learned that ministry is a process of letting go of responsibilities that sometimes offer associated ego fulfillment. For instance, it was a healthy adjustment for me to rejoice that some in our congregation considered our pastoral care pastor more their pastor than me.

This is definitely a lesson all of us in ministry need to learn, and a warning we need to heed. The days of the mega church are numbered, and the issue was raised by one of the key players in the mega church movement, Mr. Purpose Driven Life himself. For those involved with youth ministry, this should definitely serve notice that we need to place an emphasis on community - on helping those involved with our ministries to feel connected. If we don't, we may be looking at a rocky road ahead of us.

That makes me feel like ice cream.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 00:20:14 GMT

I know that most of my posts are ministry related in some way, and this is a little bit of a stretch, but for a road-warrior like me, I thought this was stinkin' cool. Imagine the countless minutes this could save me on the road. Think of the lives that could have been impacted if I had only learned this technique sooner...