Last night, my friend, Jason, and I went to see the Irish film Once, that was just released here in Prague. I won’t get too much into the film besides I loved it. It was beautiful. Here is a quick synopsis of the film from Yahoo (or for a more detailed write up click here for the Wik):

A tale that follows ‘the Guy’, who works part-time helping his father run a small, vacuum cleaner repair business, but dreams of one day having his songs recorded and landing a record deal. Emotionally vulnerable, he is still coming to terms with the recent departure of his girlfriend and lacks the conviction and passion to move on in his pedestrian life. One day, he meets ‘the Girl’, an Eastern European immigrant who has moved to Dublin to start a new life for herself. Currently working as a house cleaner in an upper-class residence, she is struggling financially. She yearns for what she cannot afford–a piano to help her escape from the daily grind of finding her way through this strange new land. A relationship blossoms between ‘the Guy’ and ‘the Girl’, as they’re both struggling. Their shared love of music causes them to flourish and grow with a new found confidence as they take a chance on each other and a new beginning on life.

I highly recommend the film, but I’ll warn my American readers that it doesn’t have the cute bow tied on it at the end that we have come to expect from films. You also need to check out the soundtrack as well! As soon as I could I hopped on iTunes and grabbed it last night.

As I sat and watched the film I sat there feeling an untapped part of me coming alive. Maybe it is because this film follows the creative development of beautiful music, and thus art. Maybe, it is because I’ve been longing to {re}engage the artistic part of me that I forsaked somewhere along the way, thinking that an athlete couldn’t be an artist as well. I think it’s all the above. So I’m thankful that the imago dei (image of God) was bursting from this film last night. We’ll see what this means as I get settled and I can begin the {re}engagement process (it’s also a bonus that God has put some “creatives” in my life here in Prague - Mark, Jason, Ondra.)

Then this morning I stumbled along another stimulus for creativity - it’s called the Moleskine Project. The gist seems to be that people draw, paint, or pretty much create in their moleskines and then they send them in. This kind of hits home since I have a recently found love of affair with Moleskine products. Check out the Moleskine Project and I pray the rest of your weekend is blessed and full of God. I have to get going. I have my second test tomorrow in Czech class! Love it!

Death. It’s a strange thing. There is something deep down in me, that says, “This isn’t right. It shouldn’t be this way.” I thought these words as I walked through town tonight after getting the news of a very good family friend who just found out he has terminal cancer only have days. “It’s not supposed to be this way.” That is what the Bible so clearly says; tonight, I’m reminded we live outside the garden. We live in a fallen, cursed world, full of death and destruction. It makes me long for something more.

Something more. More.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:22-23)

Groaning. Longing. More.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4)

God’s bigger. No tears. No death. Newness.

So here I sit just minutes after saying good-bye to Don. As I said good-bye, through my tears, I was reminded about how Don, Les (his amazing wife) and his 3 kids took in my family after our house burned down 25 years ago and how they have consistently loved the Harrod family through the 25 years since. My heart aches for Don and Les and his family, but Don’s words were amazing – “God is good. I know where I am going, but I hurt for my family, but God is good.”

Amazing. Sheer beauty.

Please pray for Don and Les and their family. I love you more than you know!

When I got done uploading the video below, I found this one and just had to throw it on the blog. This so beautifully shows off my home! Enjoy it!

I love living here. I don’t know if you know that, but I really love living here in Prague. I try to get out into the city as much as I can, I find that ’s its good for my soul. Well, yesterday we (Jason, Mark and Jason’s sister) went out to shoot some pics and we ran into the group you see in the video above. It was actually rather entertaining! I’m pretty sure they were doing it to stay warm, because winter is just around the corner here. It was a bit of a culture shock moment because this is about non-Czech as a group of people can get. I’m not really sure where they were from, or what language the were singing in, but it was delightful! Here are a couple of pics I snapped of the color here right now! Blessings…

I meant to post this during the week, and this morning actually, but for some reason I forgot. I hope some of you faithful readers and prayer warriors get this before tomorrow afternoon (Czech time), because I need prayer! Here is the deal, my pastor is gone and I am filling in by sharing my story (i.e. testimony about how I came to faith) at my church here in Prague. With class, VISA papers, and etc. this week I didn’t have time to “prep” but I prayed often about it as I was sitting on public transportation. If you would pray for the words that God wants that would be cool, BUT the bigger prayer is this - LORD-WILLING, 5-6 of my guys (Lion’s players) will be coming to hear me speak. For most of them this is the first church experience they will have ever had. Yes you read that correctly, this will be their first church experience. Pray that God would SHOW up in some ridiculous ways BECAUSE He’s got to if anything will happen. Church starts at 4:30 here in Prague, so that is 10:30 Eastern time and 9:30 for you Central peeps, and well I think you get the point! Pray for some “Lydia experiences!”

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. Acts 16:14

Lord open hearts…

WOW! A cold snap has hit Prague. Which is funny, because I actually love cold weather. BUT this morning I don’t at all! There are two reasons for that, 1) We (my roommate and I) and can’t figure out how to turn the stinkn’ heat on. I don’t know what is wrong with us, but we NEED to get this figured out. 2) I don’t have my cold weather stuff because my shipment is still in the warehouse in Chicago!

So please pray we get our thermostat issue figured out so I don’t have to use the oven to hit our flat and so that I don’t wake up in the middle of that night in the fetal position. It was brutal last night! Please continue to pray that I get my stuff sooner rather than later. This has been a nightmare and right when we think it gets better this company drops the ball again! My dad and I actually talked about just eating the $1,000 deposit and going with another company, but that would have been long, so we sent a check in for the invoice they sent us. But that updated invoice (which was only $500 less than the $2000 they raised it to from my original quote) took them 2 weeks to get to us and now because of “paperwork” my stuff is still in Chicago.

So pray for my patience too, because I need it. The sad thing is I’m going to have to go spend some money to get some cold weather stuff (I’ve been holding of as long as I can, but I have to now) that I own and should be here, but because of bad business and shear arrogance it isn’t. Oh well, God is still on his thrown and that brings peace in the midst of the chill. Well, I’m going to get rolling, my friends Jason and Mark are shooting some pics and I’m going to tag along. Blessings to you this weekend!

For the past couple of years I’ve enjoyed and have been challenged by the Internet Monk’s (a.k.a. Michael Spencer) blog and this morning as I rolled out of bed I thought I would post his recent post here and give you a link to his site. I wanted to post his 13 Issues of Evangelicalism, because in a lot of ways he hit it right on the head. The scary thing is I see these issues in my own heart at times, but I also see them exported to the world. Much of the ugliness of the evangelicalism has been exported to other countries and the thing is, it feels like you, or at least me, can notice the ugliness so much more than the good things we, as American Evangelicals, have exported. Maybe, that is just the cynic in me (or has my father says, “I’m a realist.”). Either way, these are worth reading. May God stir something in His bride to bring deep change.

1. Vast evidence of a growing doctrinal deterioration on the essentials and implications of the Gospel.

2. The expansion and influence of the “Prosperity Gospel” throughout evangelicalism.

3. The loss of the concept of meaningful church membership and the rise of the “audience-only” model of church participation.

4. The loss of the theological “center” in mainline churches at the precise time many evangelicals are open to reconsidering the mainline vision of worship, especially in Anglicanism.

5. The triumph and glorification of unchecked pragmatic entrepreneurialism, especially in worship, but in all areas of evangelical life.

6. The corrosive and compromised influence of Christian publishing in shaping evangelicalism, as exemplified in the rise of Joel Osteen, The Prayer of Jabez and the Prosperity Gospel.

7. Growing chaos in the theological and practical preparation of pastors, especially in the “emerging” church.

8. The failure of the “Seeker” model to use its vast resources and influence to produce a Christian counter-culture or challenge the “program centered/facilities centered” model of evangelicalism.

9. The lack of rising “Billy Graham” quality new leaders for the larger evangelical movement.

10. The failure of most evangelical denominations to broadly embrace and effectively mentor the current church planting movement.

11. The demise of quality Biblical preaching at the hands of technology and entertainment.

12. The apparently fatal infection of much of the emerging church movement with the failed theology of 20th century liberalism.

13. The cannibalism of evangelicalism on issues related to theological, cultural, social and political diversity.

I have many friends out there who have ragged me for loving the writing and preaching of John Piper, and you know what I’m okay with that. I’m grateful for how the Lord has used this man in my life. But anyway, you can pre-order his new book, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, right now over at Desiring God. I couldn’t help but pre-order it! I’m excited to get to this book and at some point actually get to read it because I loved reading N.T. Wright when I studied in college. Especially, his work on the resurrection, but as of late I’ve scratched my head about some of this positions. I won’t get into right now, because after a full day of Czech I don’t have the mental capacity to even attempt it. BUT I think this is an important discussion to have. Here is what the description of Piper’s book says:

Wright’s confidence that the church has gotten it wrong for 1,500 years, given his enormous influence, has set off warning bells for Christian leaders such as John Piper. If Wright’s framework for interpreting the New Testament text and his understanding of justification find a home in the church, not only could the doctrine of justification be distorted for generations to come, but the New Testament writers’ original intent could be silenced. So Piper is sounding a crucial warning in this book, reminding all Christians to exercise great caution regarding “fresh” interpretations of the Bible and to hold fast to the biblical view of justification.

Yeah, Ernie and I are as “typical single guys” as a “typical single guy” can get in some areas. Sadly, this is our fridge on a regular basis. Would you help us? We are looking for quick and easy recipes and/or godly beautiful single women that wouldn’t mind cooking for us occasionally! Just playing with you, okay maybe I’m not playing with you. Ha! Blessings…

Well, I said in an earlier post, “I look forward to reflecting on what it means to become nothing for the sake of the Gospel by learning this culture’s language,” and I eluded to this new series starting once I got net in my place. Well, I have the net in my place but I am learning how to balance everything right now so I am going to start this series on my blog entitled Becoming Nothing with the hopes that if I begin it future entries in the series will follow. So here we go! The foundation of this series and my life right now are a couple of sections in the New Testement. The first is 1 Corinthians 9:19-23:

19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

And Philippians 2:5-7:

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

These two verses so beautifully describe what missional living, or incarnational living, looks like in the life of a Christ follower who is seeking to be “in the world but not of it” for the glory of God and the good of the city, or world, that God has placed them in. How do we see transformation? I believe we see transformation by beginning to make ourselves nothing in humility, taking Jesus’ lead when He came to earth and took on the flesh of humanity and interacted within culture.

So the question for us as Christ followers are we going to be willing to follow Jesus and make ourselves nothing for the sake of those around us or are we going to continue to think to highly of ourselves and expect fallen, sinful culture and world to stumble into our churches, events, and etc.? I have failed here often in my 8 years of being a Christian, but God has taught me with each failure and here I now sit in a country that is hopelessly in need of the Gospel of life!

I, by the Spirit’s empowering, am seeking to make myself nothing and taking on the form of a servant by learning this ridiculously difficult language. Why do I do it? I will just quote Bible, and that is all the defense and explanation that I need, “I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.” That is what God has called me to.

What is, or has, He called you to for the sake of the lost around you? How are you learning the “language” of those around you? Are you in the process of becoming nothing?

I want to help you understand a bit of what my adventure in becoming nothing looks like. Because it isn’t easy, and it won’t be easy for you either, but I really believe God is calling His Bride, the Church, to learn the language of our cultures, thus becoming nothing, so that they may share in the blessings of the Gospel with us. So here is a portion of the introduction to one of my trusted books in this season of my life, 401 Czech Verbs, it’s entitled Secrets of the Czech National Defense System. I think it will help you understand things a bit more:

As a globetrotting tourist to the Czech republic I was amazed at and confused by the survival of a culture in which the Czech men are so completely non-aggressive and peaceful, complimented by the truly breath-taking, stunning beauty of the Czech women. For a thousand years the Czechs have been living here and have been invaded and “conquered” a dozen times, yet the Czech language, culture, blood lines, and buildings appear to have survived for the most part completely unaffected. World history is littered with peaceful cultures that have been decimated by stronger aggressive invading forces. How could the Czech culture survive when so many other cultures have not? Eventually I came to realize that they survived because of the secret Czech National Defense System.

The Czech National Defense System is a secret known by all Czechs…the language.

Perhaps Czech evolved in a manner similar to the children’s game of pig Latin, in which a word is made unintelligible to the uninitiated by changing a few letters. Delighting in the confusion this caused, the Czechs continued to add to the complexity of every imaginable aspect of a sentence until achieving a cryptographer’s nightmare.

I imagine that Czech was so difficult for the foreign invaders that they were unable to interact in a meaningful way with the Czechs. The foreign invaders eventually tired of not being able to communicate much of anything to anyone, so they left, leaving the culture unaffected. When the next invaders came, the Czechs realized that with the secret defensive power of their technically sophisticated language, being non-violent would do less damage to life and property. The Czechs laughed at the pretensions of the crude steel weaponry of the foreigners, and hosted the new temporary administrators in the big castle on the hill, knowing they too would tire of being here, and leave if they could not talk with anyone. The protection of the secrets of the Czech language has been a part of the culture for so long that it is done effortlessly by all, perhaps not even consciously.

This protection of the language is visible everywhere. A small example, one of the most common words in the language, “řict” (to say), is not listed in the pocket dictionaries that are bought by tourists.