This morning I felt led to pray the following for BeDeviant:

Help me to maintain biblical fidelity while challenging institutional rigidity.

I want to ask you to join me in that prayer. For this site, specifically. Pray for the mission of BeDeviant, “Bridging the gaps between church and culture.”

You have allowed me to post and write and think “out loud” on this site for almost two years and I feel like we’re just about to turn the corner.

I don’t know why.
I don’t know when.
I don’t know what it will look like.

I do know that God has confirmed a suspicion in my heart that this blog is more than a blog–it’s a movement. If you want the backstory sometime, I’ll tell you. Needless to say, there have been multiple occasions where I have wanted to pull the plug on this site but, as the saying goes, “God wouldn’t let me.” To the best of my discernment (and countless others), the message of BeDeviant goes way beyond being my personal blog. (I do have a personal blog set up at JustinWise.net. I’d love it if you visited sometime.)

So, I humbly ask for your prayers as we sit and listen and figure out what’s next.

Not only that, I want to encourage you to pray for the following bloggers. They’re people I look up to. They take chances daily in what they write and share:

• Jon Acuff – He has a book coming out in three weeks and, from the sounds of it, he’s really nervous. Pray for his financial success (yes, that’s okay to pray for).
• Anne Jackson – She challenges what it means to be a leader in the church and takes a lot of heat because of it. Pray that she would have the strength to continue challenging. Her voice is needed.
• Carlos Whittaker – Los, as my friend is fond of saying, “lives a life that is less than ordinary.” He’s a family man. He takes huge risks. Being a family man myself, I know that sometimes “risk” and “family” are terrifying terms to place in the same sentence together. Pray for continued boldness.
• Seth Godin – Seth makes you think different …. about everything. Yeah, he’s a business guy, but his M.O. is to change the way people live their lives. Pray for continued insight in Seth’s life.
• Ben Arment – Ben’s a dreamer and the life of a dreamer involves lots of risks. Pray not that the risks would subside, but that he would continue to have the faith and fortitude to move forward with what God is calling him to. With unction, no doubt.

Will you take a moment or two and join me in prayer?

Other Posts You May Enjoy:

• You Are Brilliant, Now Prove It
• Why 2010 Will Be the Year of Blogging
• Wordpress 2.9 is Mighty Fine!

This video from Q featuring Alan Hirsch is well worth the 19-minute investment. Here’s a quick synopsis of his talk:

The church as we know it is changing. We live in a post-modern, post-Christian and post-American world, where the church is no longer placed at the center of society. Our influence is waning and our basis for ecclesiology will drive the way we interact in this new reality. It begs the question, what should the church look like and how does the mission of the church adapt within this context? In his book, The Shaping of Things to Come, Alan Hirsch paints a picture of what the new church should look like. Hirsch asserts that “the church can be reborn through incarnational mission, messianic spirituality and apostolic structure.”

Rather than be paralyzed by what he’s suggesting (which would be very easy to do), what’s one concrete thing you can change in your church today?

HT: Rhett Smith

Other Posts You May Enjoy:

• Bridging the Gap Between the Church and Millennials
• Does This Describe the State of Your Church?
• Ellen, Existentialism and Ambassadors

Ben Arment has the infamous “Wednesday Morning Run-down”.

Stuff Christians Like has “Serious Wednesdays“.

In light of our latest Ellen posts, I’m thinking BeDeviant needs “Controversial Wednesdays”.

I’m just warning you: This could be a potential barn-burner. A friend suggested this question to me the other day and I loved it. I pose to you what he posed to me:

In what ways are churches NOT following Scripture?

The suggestion he gave was church elders. I’m extrapolating on his suggestion, but the classifications for who an elder should be is pretty stringent:

• Beyond reproach.
• Faithful in marriage.
• Not violent or a heavy drinker.
• Likes having people over to visit.

There are more, but chances are you can already see where some of your elders (or deacons or council) don’t fit the bill.

So let’s tackle this head on:

1. Where do you see churches not following the commands of Scripture?
2. What is a helpful suggestion to “correct the course”?

Ready? Go. Let us know in the comments.

Other Posts You May Enjoy:

• The Inerrancy of College Basketball
• Ellen Part Two
• Do You Know Your “Non-Negotiables”?

My alma mater, the University of Northern Iowa, recently won the Missouri Valley Conference championship. It’s the second year in a row they’ve done it, but this season was sweeter. They beat a team in the Wichita State Shockers that had given them two tough games earlier in the season, each team claiming a victory.

As I watched the final minutes of the championship game on Sunday, something hit me. How we read Scripture is a lot like basketball commentators–they’re all watching the same game, but the way it’s interpreted varies from person to person. Sometimes greatly.

Allow me to explain further. . . .

Crank Up the Transistor Radio, Ma!

The Wise household doesn’t have cable. Most of the time it’s not an issue, except when I want to watch one of my teams play. UNI happens to be one of my teams. They played the Shockers twice earlier in the season before beating them in the conference championship on Sunday. I missed the two prior games because–you guessed it–no cable.

So I had to listen on the radio.

The first game I caught on a local station here in Des Moines, no problem. The second game, however, was a bit trickier. Our house is like a black hole for AM signals and it was a foggy night in Des Moines. Both of these factors add up to no AM radio in our house! Bad news.

So I flipped out my iPhone, fired up the Wunder Radio app, and searched for the game. I found it, thankfully, but had to listen to the opposing team’s commentators call the game. At this point, I couldn’t be choosy, so Wichita State Shocker radio it was.

As you can imagine, the experience was much different than listening to the usual Panther commentators–Gary Rima and Kevin Boyle. I had to hear the game called from a much different perspective than my own:

• Calls against the Shockers were protested more loudly.
• Points scored by the Panthers went uncelebrated.
• Complaints about the refs were louder when the Shockers were behind.
• Players names on the Panthers were butchered–not intentionally but because of unfamiliarity.

A Shock to the Shockers

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. The Shocker commentators, while watching the same basketball game as everyone else, clearly had a bias towards their team. And why wouldn’t they? This team is their meal ticket. They know the players and have interviewed them countless amounts of times. There’s an intimate bond that is not present with the Panthers. Their perspective on the game is influenced by the experiences they’ve had with the team.

It would be silly to call the Panther or Shocker commentator perspective “inerrant”–that is, without errors. Completely perfect from top to bottom. Categorizing the commentary wouldn’t make any sense. It would defy logic. The only “inerrant” part of the whole ordeal would that the Panthers won and the Shockers lost the championship game. That cannot be disputed–the Panthers had more points at the end of the game. Therefore they won. Boom. Done.

The Bible as Inerrant or My Perspective as Inerrant?

The point I’m getting at is this–often times when we read Scripture, we believe our perspective is inerrant. We say that the Bible is inerrant, but what we mean is that the way we read it is without error. To classify the Bible as inerrant–at least, in the sense that it has come to be known in the American Evangelical world–is like calling a basketball game inerrant. That doesn’t make any sense. A basketball game can’t be inerrant, in the same way that a husband’s love for his wife cannot be inerrant. It’s not set up that way. It doesn’t make sense.

We bring so many different experiences to the table when we sit down and read the Bible. Just like the Shocker commentators calling the game against the Panthers, we have biases towards seeing what we want to see. Many of which we’re not aware of. The key in reading Scripture is be aware of this and “proceed as planned.”

In the same way that the outcome of a college basketball game is inerrant–someone will win and someone will lose–so is the Bible. The “outcome” of reading the Bible is inerrant–that is, if we engage the pages of Scripture in the way God desires us to, it will have its intended effects on our soul. We have to take the entirety of Scripture in mind–the message it sends from top to bottom–into mind when we read the Bible. If I would have just watched the first half of the ball game on Sunday, I would have concluded, wrongly, that the Panthers lost since they were behind. Many of us are stuck in the locker room at halftime when it comes to reading the Bible. We don’t have the “full picture” and our view is seriously skewed.

The Bible is “living and active.” I’ve never heard of a human being–one who is living and active–be classified as “inerrant.” Have you? The modern notion of inerrancy is forced and dangerous. Kind of like calling a college basketball game “inerrant.” It doesn’t make sense.

Other Posts You May Enjoy:

• Ellen Part Two
• Controversial Wednesdays – Not Following Scripture
• Finding the Answer v. Being the Answer

Other Posts You May Enjoy:

• Alan Hirsch Throws Down the 20-Year Challenge
• The Inerrancy of College Basketball
• The Gospel According to the Oscars

Everyone wants to be acknowledged for something.

This need for affirmation can be a good thing. For instance, when my five-month-old son learned how to jump up and down in his jump-a-roo, he needed to be affirmed. He needed to know that his mommy and his daddy saw what he was doing and were as excited as he was. “This is a good thing, Finny! Keep jumping!”

The need to be affirmed can also take a more sinister spin. The Oscars prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt. “Affirm me!” seems to be the cry of the night–if not the cry of the soul.

• If you look pretty, you get in. People gawk at how beautiful/handsome you are. They comment on the wonderful clothes you’re wearing. People affirm you because of what you bring them–pleasure, increased social standing, money, power, etc.
• If you look average, or even “less than perfect,” you’re not allowed to enter. You are not affirmed. You’re ignored, passed over for George Clooney or Sandra Bullock. If you’re outfit isn’t name-brand, you’ll be ridiculed by others–via telestrator, even.
• The line of who is “in” (affirmed) and who is “out” (unaffirmed, ignored) is clear and solid.

Beauty, art, creativity and brilliance must be celebrated wherever they surface. There are too few celebrations of the good and true in life. In some ways, the Oscars do this.

The Oscars also highlight the tragedy of the human existence–trying to be “good enough” in order to get noticed; to be affirmed. Unfortunately, this dynamic plays out in many of our faith lives. We think we can do enough, pray enough, study enough, serve enough in order to be “affirmed” by God. Whoops.

We are the ones trying to find the right designer to wear.
We are the ones endlessly primping ourselves in order to get noticed.
We are the ones who engage in toxic and bizarre behavior hoping that someone will notice.

All this to get the attention of a God who welcomes crooks, whores, cheats, villains and drop-outs to the table (the “after-party,” if you will). He welcomes the ones who have done absolutely nothing to get his attention. He welcomes the “not-good-enoughs.” And here’s the little Gospel secret we patronize from the pulpits–no one is good enough. We give lip service to this, but few of us really believe it. The allure of the red carpet is far too strong.

The Oscars are over. But we have a choice to make: are we going to continue to primp and preen, hoping the reality of our brokenness can be sheened over with fake tan and a tuxedo? Or are we going to realize that God sees the brokenness, the “not-good-enough” deep within us, and still prepares a seat at the table for us?

Other Posts You May Enjoy:

• Jesus is Simple
• The Inerrancy of College Basketball
• Does This Describe the State of Your Church?

Here’s a recap of the top three posts from BeDeviant.com this past week. This week is “Ellen-centric” for a reason. We generated a ton of discussion, dialogue, disagreements and definitions. If you’ve not read the posts, check them out and add your opinion …. If you dare.

1. Why You’ll See Ellen DeGeneres in Heaven – Start here.
2. Ellen Part Two – Then go here.
3. Ellen, Existentialism and Ambassadors – Finish here.

So there they are, your top 3 posts of the week! Recap, refresh, re-read, re-tweet!

Other Posts You May Enjoy:

• Best of the Week, v.5
• “Praying for my Blog” – As Awkward as it Sounds
• Why I Write

In light of the recent “controversy” here on BeDeviant, I’ve been re-evaluating the purpose behind this site. If the “Ellen situation” has taught me anything, it’s that there’s a profound need to ask the theological questions that no one else is asking. I’ll take my lumps from time-to-time (case-in-point: Ellen Pt. 1 & Ellen Pt. 2), but I feel BeDeviant’s God-given purpose is to plunge headlong into the taboo issues in the Church today.

For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to the most difficult, confusing and troublesome passages of Scripture that exist. I can’t explain it, I just know the desire to dig beneath the surface is there. I like the tension of “both/and” because God is so rarely “either/or.” So that’s what I write about. That’s the purpose behind this site.

Clarifying a purpose means that you’ll have to let some things go. So that’s what we’re going to do. In order to go higher you need to get lighter.

To be truthful, I’ve been thinking about solidifying the mission of this blog for some time. I knew we were dabbling in our “purpose” discussing matters of faith, culture and technology, but it still didn’t feel clear enough for me.

We’ve clarified things here at BeDeviant. Our new mission statement reads as follows:

Bridging the gaps between church and culture.

As a result, you will see all content focused on the connections between culture and the church. We have been phasing out the “technology” portion of BeDeviant for some time, but this marks the official end to that branch.

Not because it wasn’t fun, but because it took away from what I feel is the main vision for this site. I’ll continue to write sporadically on tech, but I’ll do so over at my personal blog, JustinWise.net

There are other people in the faith blogosphere who cover technology much more effectively than I could ever hope to. John and his friends over at 8BIT are such folks. They’re crushing it. Since we can’t add any more value than what they’re already providing, it was time to let it go.

So we did. Done. Gone.

Ditching the tech and focusing on culture and faith will allow us to pour all our energies in creating bridges.

Bridges that allow those who have been away from the Church to come back.
Bridges that give people with spiritual questions a chance to ask them in a safe space.
Bridges that allow people to know Jesus without all of the cultural baggage that can sometimes come with it.

The bridge-building desire is rooted in Scripture.

God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

It’s a passage that’s captivated me for some time because the Church is in desperate need of good ambassadors. Ambassadors who understand the values of the culture that they’re representing and the culture they find themselves in. Nothing’s worse than an ambassador who’s a jerk. It gives the place they come from a bad name. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the natives towards the place you’re representing. Bad ambassadors, in a word, suck.

So that’s where we’re at. That’s where we’re headed. And, from the looks of it, we have a whole lot of people coming along with us.

Thanks for reading. Don’t be afraid to contact us. And as always, be deviant.

Other Posts You May Enjoy:

• Ellen Part Two
• Do You Know Your “Non-Negotiables”?
• Infant Baptism: Yes or No?

Awhile back we conducted a blog sponsor experiment. The experiment was to give away free ad spots on BeDeviant.com for the month of March, giving exposure to different business, individuals and organizations here on the blog.

Suffice to say, it worked.

We had a great response. Unfortunately we couldn’t take everyone, but there wasn’t a bad one in the bunch! Thanks again to all who took part in our experiment.

Without further ado, here are your winners!

1. TylerStanton.com – A movement of people who don’t take themselves too seriously and are able to laugh at each other. And more importantly, themselves.
2. BlaineHogan.com – Ideas + Hope + Creative Process.
3. CityGates.org – City Gates combines powerful web tools, ease of use, and great design. And it’s built just for churches.
4. SaveTheCups.com – A social movement to save paper coffee cups.
5. ImpelMinistry.com – Our purpose is to equip, inform, educate and encourage young leaders by covering new and exciting ideas, cutting-edge causes, movements, events, resources, news, church marketing, innovation, and leadership strategy and insights.

It would give me great pleasure if you’d visit each one of these sites and take a look at what they’re up to. They’ve been hand-picked for a reason and I think you’ll really enjoy what they’re about.

Congrats!

Thanks again to The World’s Strongest Librarian for the idea!

Other Posts You May Enjoy:

• Best of the Week, v.8
• Blog Sponsor Experiment on BeDeviant

I felt compelled to share the reason why BeDeviant.com exists.

Here’s the thing: Most of us have no idea what we believe. We think we do. We may even believe that we do. We will passionately defend what we believe we believe. Sometimes to the death. But truly, most of us do not have access to what we really believe.

Why? We believe what we’ve been conditioned to believe.

What we believe is so influenced by our families, our cultures, our race and ethnicity, our socioeconomic status, that we have no access to our actual beliefs and values. There are too many hurdles to jump, so the hard work of “jumping” never gets done. Staring down a long-held cherished belief and declaring, “False!” is too painful. We’d rather live in ignorance for, as they say, “ignorance is bliss.”

It is only after we learn how we have come to believe what we believe that the true work of forming an honest belief system can begin. Phew.

This is why I write. I write to challenge people to look at not just what they believe, but why they believe it. As Socrates famously stated, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” I write to challenge people to look at things differently.

However, this is much more the philosophic fodder. My ultimate model in “being deviant” is none other than Jesus. When we see Jesus, we see a man who challenged nearly every cultural and familial tradition of his day,

• Interpretation of cherished religious texts.
• Honored religious teachings; some hundreds–if not thousands–of years old.
• The picture of who God is and what he requires of those who follow him.
• The cultural view of women, the poor and the foreigner.
• Racial and ethnic “safety zones.”
• Popular political statements and parties.

And those are just the ones we know about.

Jesus was a man who jarred the soul–violently at times–in order to free people from the bondage of mindless, man-made religious tradition. Jesus freed people to believe in the One True God, not just believe in their beliefs. Jesus gave people access to the Truth and, as he famously stated, “the truth shall set you free.”

As a Christian, we are “little Christs.” We do what we see Jesus doing, both in life and in death.

I see Jesus challenging the this-is-the-way-we’ve-always-done-it-status-quo, so that’s what I do.
I see Jesus challenging our notions of who God is, so that’s what I do.
I see Jesus challenging the religious arrogance of those who believe they have it all figured out, so that’s what I do.

I wouldn’t have necessarily chosen to be this expression of Christ’s Body, but providence is particular. I write because I feel it’s God-in-me, calling me to do so.

My mentor once told me that when you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one who gets hit is the one who yelps the loudest. Writing for BeDeviant.com is kind of like that. We need to be smacked in the head once in awhile to be jarred loose from the death-grip that the suffocating religious spirit has on our souls.

This–for better or worse–is why I write. Come what may.

I’ve closed the comments on this post because what I wrote is not up for debate. It’s my story of the Spirit of God intersecting a human life and the beauty and chaos that results.

Other Posts You May Enjoy:

• Challenging Tradition May Cost You Your Life
• “Praying for my Blog” – As Awkward as it Sounds
• The Inerrancy of College Basketball