Cascade Church Portland

Rhythms:: Action

There is one aisle of the grocery store that will forever take me two times as long to walk through and make decisions in. The cereal aisle is my kryptonite. 

I get option paralysis which absolutely incapacitates me. There are SO MANY choices and each one represents a different reason to choose it. 

Cap'n Crunch:: Maritime breakfast of choice that declares war on the roof of your mouth

Lucky Charms:: I'm part Irish and if I buy it I can have first dibs on the marshmallows

Rice Krispies:: I want all the cereal, but none of the flavor

Frosted Mini Wheats:: I want to be healthy AND cover my breakfast in frosting

Cheerios:: I have a small child in my house and I want to find cereal everywhere

Bran:: No comment

Life Cereal:: Peer Pressure

Cookie Crisp:: I've given up on adulthood

Grape Nuts:: I love cereals with non-descriptive names and I need to declare war on my teeth

It's completely overwhelming and if I've ever gone missing for over 24 hours, your best guess is a cereal aisle. 

This phenomena can also happen in our life for things that are far more important than cereal. We can be paralyzed by a great sea of options before us and a fear of regret can keep us in perpetual limbo. In this conversation we want to look at how God calls us to move in the face of possible failure or remorse and put our present convictions into action. Take a listen!

Rhythms::Learning

Do you have a friend who never seems to let the facts get in the way of their most strongly held opinions? 

I have a confession. I am that friend. 

I've often referenced articles that I've only skimmed if they back up a point I want to make. I'll reference books that I've never finished, especially if the title supports a point I want to make. 

And honestly, it doesn't get much better when I read all of the article or book I'm using to make a point. That's because I'm usually choosing the authors and books that most affirm the belief I'm already heading towards. 

In this message we want to enter into our first pair of the Rhythms series by looking at Learning in Learning//Doing set. What's the point of learning if it just reaffirms beliefs you already hold? Does learning have any value besides conversations/debates? Are followers of Jesus called to be learners? 

Rhythm:: A Time For Everything

At times life can feel like a speeding car with the brakes out and accelerator stuck to the floor. You might be holding the steering wheel, but it only offers the illusion of control.

 

Our best efforts to schedule and plan can be completely thrown out the window at a moment's notice. Loved ones get sick or injured. New job opportunities come along and current job opportunities end. People are born and loved ones pass away.

 

While we can't control the fluctuations of life, we can seek to move with them by introducing healthy rhythms into our lives. This summer message series is all about finding rhythms in life that bring health and greater thriving. We'll be looking at 4 areas where things can get out of rhythm and we can lean too far one way or the other.

Learning//Acting

Work//Play

Giving//Receiving

Community//Solitude

Here's our first message in that series. 

Jesus:: Rumor Has It

Have you ever walked into a rumor and heard the lively conversation come to a complete stop? We can all hope that you just stumbled into your surprise birthday planning meeting, but the reality is probably less kind. Take a listen to a conversation about the toll that gossip and outside expectations can take on a person. Colleen asks a profound question about what happens when the external gossip becomes internal gossip. 

Jesus:: Time to Leave

The nature of our closet relationships is that these are the people who can comfort or harm us the most. Nobody else has the proximity to impact us in this way. 
Think of the person who knows your deepest and darkest secrets. The kinds of things that you have only shared with a few people. 

I would imagine these faces come quickly to your mind. These aren't strangers or acquaintances. You have history and connection with these people that let you know they're somewhat safe and the kinds of people you can trust with this precious cargo. 

Many years ago I let a Kirby vacuum salesman inside my home. If you aren't familiar with Kirby vacuums, then allow me to do my best to introduce you to them. It's a very large, very involved and very expensive vacuum cleaner that is exclusively sold by door to door sales people. I love talking with people so I ended up letting the guy in and tell me all the wonders of Kirby vacuums. If you get far enough into this pitch they will offer to demonstrate how their vacuum works and I had a spot that I just couldn't get out of our carpet. 

While the vacuum did take out that stain, his shoes left several more, and much more difficult to remove stains in our carpet. I was officially done with our interaction after an hour and a half, but I still had to meet with his manager and repeatedly refuse many payment plans and special deals to get them to leave. My wife walked in at the tail end of this fiasco and will still rush to the door if a salesman is coming our way. 

This can be a bit like our closest relationships. We've let someone in, it's gone terribly and there's a mess everywhere. It can make us wary about letting anybody else into our lives. 

Take a listen to a story about some people who were getting close to Jesus and the moment they decided to end the relationship. I encourage any of you who have hurt or have been hurt by people closest to listen to this model of Jesus and grow closer to the God who knows abandonment. 

Jesus:: The World's Messiah

Can you imagine Captain America showing up in the United States and announcing his intention to go provide his superhero services to the people of Bangladesh? It would be a disorienting experience. That's supposed to be the person to serve and protect our country. His colors are red, white and blue. He's an American citizen!

That's exactly the kind of disorientation Jesus caused when he announced himself as messiah (Captain Israel) and was out teaching and healing folks in Capernum. 

This led to the people from his hometown rejecting him. Have you ever felt infringed upon by other expectations? Take a listen and experience Christ as the God who knows. 

Jesus:: What is Sacred?

Have you ever used a label maker? It's a powerful, powerful thing.  I have only played with one of these pieces of magic a couple of times and it is intoxicating. For the uninitiated, you type whatever you want into a mini computer and it spits out a shiny sticker with that word on it.  Want to clearly differentiate between your containers of flour and sugar? Easy.  Want to let the world know this plastic tote is filled with Christmas lights? Consider it done. Looking to mark your laptop with your name, address and phone number? So simple.  You suddenly feel the need to identify and label each and everything in your home or office. If you get carried away your life will look like the inside of a Richard Scarry word book.  Thinking about the tantalizing power of the label maker has caused me to reflect on how I do something similar with the labels of "sacred" and "secular". By sacred I mean all things to do specifically with God, faith, Christianity, etc. Secular is everything else in life, like our jobs, family, errands, play, etc.  What I've been wrestling with lately is how harmful these labels can be for living the kind of life that Jesus calls us into. If we believe that God created all things and Christ came to invite us to redeem all things, then what is secular anymore? This has been reorienting my daily life.  Mowing the lawn is sacred work. Putting my boys to bed is sacred work. Talking to my brother on the phone is a sacred conversation, and not just when we talk about God and the church.  I invite you to join the conversation about relabeling our daily rhythms as sacred and seeing that God is in the smallest of tasks and the greatest of challenges.

Jesus:: Dinner and Gossip

Have you ever had someone say, "We were just talking about you the other night" and you feel a little nervous? What train of thought lead them there? 

"Speaking of annoying people..."

"Yeah, you know who else can't dance..."

"I didn't know sushi could make me that sick, which reminds me..."

There's something tied to the thought of people talking about you when you're not around that can either be the most encouraging or discouraging thing possible. You know that these kinds of conversations can shape how people engage with you in the future, and yet you're powerless to inform them. 

This Sunday we look at a story where Jesus faced pressure to let other people's conversations and thoughts about him direct his actions. I'm excited to sit together and wrestle with this tension! I hope you'll come and join me. 

Science Mike McHargue@ Cascade

This week we have a special treat, Science Mike delivers his message on creation, evolution Van Gogh's Starry Night and the infallibility of the Bible.

Jesus:: Baptism

Are you familiar with the term "sacrilege"? It's the misuse or violation of something sacred, like the church or Christianity. It's a word that I grew up with and was fairly certain I was in danger of doing with most conversations about Jesus. 

There's an aura surrounding the story of Jesus. His miracles, teachings, death and resurrection all inspire a kind of reverence that demand us to tread lightly. I never felt comfortable asking many questions about the life and details of Jesus, because it could be sacrilege. I was never invited to think about what I would do if I were Jesus. It was always about placing yourself in the role of a disciple or pharisee or bystander. 

The life of Jesus existed behind glass to be preserved and revered. Thinking about how certain encounters impacted Jesus was a violation of our sacred savior. It could be sacrilege. 

In this series, "The Life and Journey of Jesus", we hope to remove the glass of preservation and engage fully in the story of Jesus. There will still be much of the story that seems very distant from our own experience, but to embrace the full balance of divinity and humanity found in Jesus is to embrace that he experienced the same emotions, doubts and temptations that we face. Ultimately this leads us into a relationship with the God who walked, talked, ate and breathed with us. Jesus didn't live a preserved and distant life, but an engaged life that invites us to be known fully by the God who knows us fully.