Who Are You Touching?

As usual after coming back from Dragon*Con (read my report on the Fans For Christ web site) I have a lot of thoughts about God.  This year it started to hit me just how many people we touch there.  

A few years ago we had an atheist come up to our fan table and talk to us.  He said (and I'm paraphrasing as I don't remember his exact words) "I don't believe in God but I've seen you guys around for the last few years and really admire what you're doing and how you're conducting yourselves.  Keep it up."  An avowed atheist told us to keep promoting Christ!  Maybe a seed was planted in his heart that the Spirit will water.

Every year my family goes to the Yule Ball, a Harry Potter themed party.  It's a lot of fun to us since there are great costumes, dancing, and a lot of our friends go.  This year I had three different groups of people come up to me and say how much they enjoyed our church service and the message.

One of the people who came to our service was Rick Goins of channel 57, WATC, in Atlanta.  It is a Christian station and he is a host of their show, Atlanta Live.  He was very impressed and surprised by our fan group and the service.  So much so that today I recorded an interview with him.  That interview about Fans For Christ and con ministry will be broadcast to Christians and others all over the metro Atlanta area.

Obviously we are touching people in an amazing way and God is using this ministry to spread His message.  I'm so humbled to be allowed to take part in this and am so excited to see hints of what else He has in store.

Every year at the con we see street-preachers, some of them holding up big signs saying "Repent" or talking about sinners going to Hell.  While I don't disagree with what they are saying, I sincerely disagree with how they are going about it.  Even many Christians are put off by the method of the message, and non-Christians certainly avoid them.  I can promise you that we touch more people in a few hours than those guys do in four days.  While they have the same message that we do, the presentation is what draws or repels people.

What are you doing in your own life?  How are you touching those you come into contact with?  You don't have to be a minister or go to a con to show people Jesus.  We need to learn to show people the Gospel and Christ's Light in everything we do and say.  For the next few days pay attention to those around you, and really notice your interactions.  Are you making people want to find God, or chasing them away?  Or can people even tell that you're a Christian?

I once heard a very wise statement.  "Be the Bible you want people to read."  I sincerely believe that this is true.  Sometimes you're the only Gospel that people will notice.  Make sure they want to learn more.

Into The Lion's Den

As we do every year, Fans For Christ is showing up at Dragon*Con in Atlanta, Georgia.  As Christian geeks we are an oddity in every sense.  The average church-goer doesn't know what to make of us because we don't look, dress, or act like traditional Christians.  The average geek doesn't know what to make of us because we don't always act or talk like your traditional nerd.  We are a minority in a minority, and proud to be so.

One of the hardest things to do at cons like this is to maintain your faith and Christianity.  Certainly there is nothing evil about liking anime, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and so on.  But there are also certainly influences of Satan present.  Remember that one of the devil's greatest weapons is people's apathy towards God.  When we shine Christ's light in the darkness we are going to get pushed back.

For the few who might read this blog, I ask you to pray for us.  We need God's guidance as we seek to spread the Gospel.  In fact, join us in our 30 Days of Prayer on Facebook.

Batman, Tragedy, And God

I think that by now most people know about the horrible, evil tragedy that happened in Colorado at a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises.  I've seen reports online from people blaming the movie, Batman in general, and both right- and left-wing political influences.  In today's society it seems like everyone is ready to lay the blame at the feet of someone, anyone other than the person who committed an atrocity.  In our post-modern society many don't believe in "evil".

I do.

I know that there is a devil and that he wants to not only destroy us physically, but spiritually as well.  He wants nothing more than to separate us from God.  Tragedies like this latest one make people wonder, "Where is God?  Where is His mercy?"

I'm not one to speak on this, because I haven't been through that sort of horrible, life-changing event.  So I want to point you to another blog where one of the people in that theater during the shooting answers the question.  Because the author was there with her daughters, she better than anyone I know can speak to this topic.

Follow the link, read the post, and remember that despite the evil of Man, God still loves us and cares for us.


So you STILL think God is a merciful god?!

God's Production Notes

Sunday we were having a Bible discussion about Job and started thinking about what Job's response was when he got to Heaven and learned the details about all that happened to him.

"So let me get this straight....You allowed my kids to die, my possessions to be ruined, my health to fail to the point where I wanted to die, my wife to tell me to curse You, and my friends to wonder what I had done to bring Your wrath....all for a bet???"

I certainly realize why God allowed these trials to happen to Job and how he had it all restored and then some.  To us looking back it's a great story of how someone can maintain their faith even through the worst trials.  But how would we feel about that in our own lives?

My wife and I do a lot of community theater and we get to read the scripts and other production notes for the plays.  She does costuming and directing, so has made her own notes on productions.  These kinds of notes tell the "whys" and "hows" of the play, not just the "whats" of movement and lines.  I'm sure that God has production notes for our own lives.  He has jotted down writings and scribbles about why he lets things happen (or not happen) to us.  One day we'll get to Heaven, read the Book of Life, and see exactly what He was thinking.

Do we really want to know?  It's not as easy as it may seem.  Yes, it would be nice to have a better understanding of why we go through trials.  But we may not want to know that in a week we'll be in a car accident and loose our family while we survive.  Foreknowledge is a mixed blessing.  But I sure wouldn't mind some post-knowledge or present-knowledge.  I think that sometimes it would be easier to go along with God's plans if we actually knew what they were.

But that's not the case.  And that is why we have Job and other examples of how to have faith despite not knowing the details of His plans.

Zombies In The Bible?

I like a good zombie flick as much as the next guy, though I'm not as up on my zombie lore as many of my friends.  So when I see a topic on zombies in the Bible and comments like "Jesus was the first zombie" my ears prick up.

There are several things that people may bring up in this discussion.  The obvious choices are Jesus and Lazarus.  Both of them died and were laid in their tomb but later "got better" and came back to life.  But there are other events like this spread throughout the Bible

Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”

“Give me your son,” Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed.  Then he cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”

The Lord heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, “Look, your son is alive!”

1 Kings 17:17-23

When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch. He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the Lord. Then he got on the bed and lay on the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself out on him, the boy’s body grew warm. Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out on him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.  

2 Kings 4:32-35

But the most "classic" example has to be after Jesus died.

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

Matthew 27:50-53

Sounds like zombies, right?  

Nope.

The problem comes in the definition.  Historically zombies came from voodoo and were enslaved automatons.  What we currently view in popular culture as a zombie (such as in Zombieland and The Walking Dead) really originated in George Romero's classic 1968 Night of the Living Dead.  In our current parlance we see zombies as rotting undead creatures who seek out brains and human flesh upon which to feast.  That doesn't exactly sound like what we read in the Bible, does it?  Everywhere in the Bible that we see someone brought to life after dying they are perfectly fine.  They aren't decomposing and they don't develop a craving for cerebrum.  They are also resurrected by the power of God and His prophets, not by some curse or virus.  I don't think that if Lazarus had bitten one of his sisters after he came out of the grave that Mary or Martha would become undead themselves.  If we call these resurrected people "zombies", then anyone who has been clinically dead but revived by CPR is also a zombie.

However, it would be very cool to see a movie about the crucifixion of Christ actually show that scene out of Matthew!

Binding And Loosing

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

 Matthew 16:19

I've  been listening to Beth Moore's "Believing God" series on CD, after having read the book.  It's really great stuff!  Honestly, that book has helped turn me around and enabled me to get out of the pit of clinical depression.

But there was something interesting she said on one of the discs.  In the above Scripture, Jesus is using a tense in Greek that means "has already been".  So really He is saying "whatever you bind on Earth will be what has already been bound in Heaven."  In essence, He's repeating part of the prayer that He teaches the Apostles.

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:9-10

Look at that last part.  Jesus is guiding us to pray that things on Earth happen as they already have in Heaven.

Why is this so powerful a thought and revelation?  Because we are given power to do things that God has already done!  Through all of our struggles we wonder how we can survive and do what we need to do.  But God already did it!  He has already overcome these struggles!  And He has given us the power to do these same things on Earth.

Do you think that God wants Satan bound up and powerless in our lives?  Well, He already did that in the spiritual realm, and has given us the power to do that in our Earthly lives.  Does God want the Holy Spirit free and loose to blow around us and through us?  He has allowed that in Heaven and released the Spirit onto Earth, so all we have to do is loose the Spirit within us.  God isn't asking us to take on unreasonable challenges.  All he wants us to do is use the power that He gives us and do in our lives what He has already done spiritually.

Grab hold of that thought!  God gives us power and authority to do what He has done in this regard!  And because God already did the "heavy lifting", our job is that much easier.

Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust

My wife is rather obsessed with Disney's Tinker Bell.  We literally have over 700 Tink items around the house, and more all of the time.  For Mother's Day our son gave her a snow globe with Tink and the quote from Peter Pan.

"All you need is faith, trust, and a little bit of pixie dust."

My odd mind looked at this familiar phrase and realized that there is a lot of Biblical truth in it.  Really!  As Christians we honestly do need these things.  Don't believe me?

For we live by faith, not by sight. 
2 Corinthians 5:7


Now go read Hebrews 11, the best chapter on this subject.  In our lives and our daily struggles, we really do need to rely on our faith in the Lord.


Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
Proverbs 3:5 


God expects us to trust Him.  No, this isn't always easy, but we really can trust in Him completely.  If we don't trust God, who can we trust?  If He's not worthy of trust, then He's not worthy of worship.


Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Philippians 4:8

God is magic!  No, I'm not talking about spells and such.  His miracles transcend the natural and known physical laws.  Just look at miracles!  And when Peter Pan was using pixie dust he said to think of a happy thought.  In fact, with pixie dust alone you can't fly; you need the happy thoughts also.  We need to think on these things as Paul wrote to the Philippians.

So there you go.  All we need in live is to have faith in God, trust Him, and rely on his miracles and the thoughts of Him (pixie dust) in order for us to fly!