I count it a blessing to have grown up in the church.

My dad is a preacher, and as a result, at a young age I was fluent in all things churchy. I started prayers with “Dear Heavenly Father” and stuff like that.

In the introduction to his book, Matt Chandler makes an observation. He found many Christians who grew up in the church did not believe they were taught the gospel:

But the next four baptisms bothered me. One after another, each person stirred the waters and told some variation of the same story: “I grew up in church; we went every Sunday morning and night; we even went to Wednesday prayer, vacation Bible school, and youth camp. If the doors were open, we were there. I was baptized when I was six, seven, or eight, but didn’t understand what the gospel was, and after a while I lost interest in church and Jesus and I started walking in open sin. Someone recently sat me down and explained or invited me to The Village and I heard the gospel for the first time. I was blown away. How did I miss that?” Or they would say, “No one ever taught me that.”

In essence they were taught a moralistic deism. What we would call legalism.

Their teachers were not trying to teach legalism. They were trying to teach submission and obedience and the like, however they made one major mistake.

They assumed the gospel. They assumed the hearer understood grace and how God chooses to save us despite our undeserving.

I don’t know if they thought someone else had already spoken to it, or assumed someone else would, but the gospel was never taught. It was only assumed.

As a result, all these young Christians had to go on is this moralistic deism. A situation that never satisfies, but always leaves you falling short.

There was no grace.

From this experience, Chandler set out to write The Explicit Gospel. We need to make a conscious effort to explicitely deliver the gospel. No more assumptions.

In order to do this, we must know what the gospel is. This book is Chandler explaining how he understands the gospel. In a way, this a written version of his theology.

In my experience, I feel the gospel was clearly communicated to me. However, I have trouble separating what I learned at home with what I learned at church. So maybe the church was not as effective as I remember.

What is your experience? Do you agree with Chandler’s premise of the gospel not being clearly communicated in our churches?

While I think this is an issue, I am not sure it is as widespread a problem as Chandler implies. I think it may have been just a good way to introduce a book about what he thinks the gospel is.

Note: Sorry about the irregular posting. I am working on getting a better schedule for writing. However, I will continue to try and get at least a couple posts a week finished. Part of starting a new blog or website is learning what works and what doesn’t, and right now a strict posting schedule (a post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) doesn’t really work for me. Not to say I won’t try it again in the future. But I promise there will still be regular posts on the blog, it is just they may come any day of the week! To be sure and not miss a post follow me on Facebook and Twitter, or be sure and subscribe to receive my posts directly to your email. Thanks for bearing with me as I am still working out the best way to handle/manage the site.

The music that has impacted my life runs a large variety of styles and genres. They include everyone from Alan Jackson to Matchbox 20, but the most unique is a group called Acappella.

To be honest, unless you grew up in the churches of Christ, there is a good chance you have no idea who I am talking about. It isn’t that they are way unpopular – they were signed at one point to Epic records, the record label of bands like The Fray and Avril Lavigne – it is just most people don’t listen to a capella music. So here is an old video for you:

I have always been drawn to harmonies. My favorite mainstream artists still have a strong use of harmony, like Shane & Shane. But there is something about voices without instruments that reaches me in a way no other music can.

I was reminded of this last Saturday as I sat in an Acappella concert. It was my first time to see them live in a few years, and only one member was still in the group from the last time I had seen them.

But still, I enjoyed it. It is not a concert where I stand and cheer and go crazy (though there were some kids who created a rather subdued mosh pit by the stage), but a concert where I sit back, sing along, and let the beauty of the music wash over me.

Whenever Keith Lancaster started the group back in 1982, I don’t know if he ever dreamed he would still be impacting lives 30 years later. But I know for a fact he is impacting at least one.

Over the years I have memorized many a Bible verse as a result of one of the many songs they have taken directly from the Bible. I found this little medley of a few of those songs they performed on their trip to Brazil.

What do you think of Acappella? If you were already a fan, do you have a favorite song from over the years?

Or if Acappella isn’t your thing, what music has inspired you?

[note color="#c4c1d4"]Sorry about not getting the first Galatians post up on Monday. WordPress just updated, and with that came a couple of bugs I had to work out on the site. Everything should be good now. Next post, we will start our study of The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler. If you are reading along, we will be discussing the introduction to the book.[/note]

What is legalism? Essentially, legalism is believing salvation comes through our actions, rather than the grace of God.

Legalism is a natural response.

By natural, I mean we are trained from birth, as long as we behave, or do something good, we will be rewarded. So, when we read the Bible say there is nothing we can do to be good. Nothing we can do to be worthy. We are confused.

Living in an individualistic culture, we are not used to depending on others.

Yet, in the most important part of our lives, our spiritual well-being, we are fully dependent on something else. So, what we try to do is bargain with ourselves. We convince ourselves that as long as we are trying to live a good life, God will reward us with a place in Heaven.

Of course, we are kidding ourselves. God will give us a place in Heaven because he wants to. Period.

Critics about intentional living often accuse it of being a conduit for a works based faith.

I admit some similarities. The whole point is taking planned, intentional steps to follow Christ. If we are not careful, we could end up turning these steps into another law. Turn ourselves into a new group of Pharisees.

But as long as we are aware, and guard against this possibility, we will be okay. Intentional living and legalism do not go hand in hand. The mindset we bring into intentional living is the opposite of legalism.

When it comes to living out our faith, there is a difference between works and obedience.

This difference is what separates intentional living and legalism. Works (legalism) is about earning God’s grace. Obedience (intentional living) is knowing God has given us grace freely, and our response to his gift.

I may be wrong, but I feel like the Church ignores what Jesus says about Heaven. The Lord’s Prayer is the most popular prayer in the Bible. But if polled what the goal of a Christian is, I would guess most would say to go to Heaven.

Yet here is Jesus talking about bringing Heaven to Earth. To invade the Hell many people are already living in.

God is not inviting us into his Kingdom after we die, but he is inviting us into his Kingdom right now!

May we learn to bring a piece of Heaven to everyone and everything we touch.

Do you know any stories where people are bringing Heaven to those around them?

Big thanks to Carson and Bekah for your thoughts on the previous post. I look forward to working through the topics you brought up. I want this site to be a place for the readers, so if you have any questions, or topics you would like to see covered, please leave a comment. Or if you would rather do it in private, you can contact me here.

I used to own another blog. I wrote semi-regularly. For a while  a lot of people would read the blog, but Neil’s Diamonds died. Because of one fatal flaw.

No focus.

One day I would post about being called a heretic for reading a book by Rob Bell. The next I would post about my addiction to fruit snacks. And the next I would break down the latest NFL Draft class for the Dallas Cowboys.

Over time, the readership fell considerably. Until they didn’t exist. I think my mom still read sometimes, but I am not even sure about her. That is how bad it got.

So when I was thinking about starting a new website to be a homebase for my online presence, I knew the new blog needed a clear purpose. I had been looking for a good resource on the idea of intentional living and living life with a greater purpose. I couldn’t find the resource I needed.

I decided to create what I was looking for. The idea for Intentional Living was born. I have spent the last few months working hard on getting this site up and running, and I am pumped the launch date finally arrived.

Intentional Living is a blog with a simple purpose. To inspire and challenge us to live a better story.

[pullquote align="left"]A goal without a plan is just a dream. – Dave Ramsey[/pullquote]

I believe God designed us to live with a strong sense of purpose, and a desire to experience adventure. Yet, we often seem content to live safe, boring lives. This quote from Dave Ramsey says it all. We all have dreams. But without a plan, dreams never move beyond being only dreams.

Here are some things you can expect to find on Intentional Living:

1. Bible Studies – Short studies from the Bible featuring stories of God using ordinary people to do exraordinary things.

2. Real life inspirational stories of people doing amazing things for Christ.

3. We will also explore tools to help with productivity. The more time we have to chase the adventures God planned for us, the better.

4. Short reviews of books or movies I think would be beneficial on our quest here at Intentional Living.

5. A Bible verse in every post (Except this one…). So even if you hate everything else I say, maybe you will be a pal and come back for the Bible verse? Please?

6. Every post will be between 500 and 800 words. I am not trying to take up your entire day. You will never  spend more than 10 minutes reading a post.

What do you think?

I hope with this site we can cultivate a community of believers all on the same path.

We won’t only talk about people going to free enslaved children in Uganda, but we will also talk about what Intentional Living means in your hometown. What does Intentional Living mean for you and me, right where we are. Of course we will talk about freeing enslaved children in Uganda, too, because it is a good story.

Coming up next week we will look at the story from the Bible that inspired me to dive deeper into the idea of Intentional Living. Consider it the story that inspired the site, if you will.

We will also explore a popular critique of Intentional Living. The idea that Intentional Living leads to a legalistic, works based faith. And last I have an idea for a cool weekly post involving Twitter. It may not work, but I have to at least try it once!

So don’t forget to come back next week!

If you think the site is really ugly and don’t want to come back, feel free to sign up for updates through your RSS reader or email.

Do you have any thoughts about Intentional Living? Any specific topics you would like to dive into?