What is the Gathering?

When people ask me, what is the vision of the Gathering, I like to point them to our prayer which has taken almost three years of changing vision, experience, and ministry to finally be written out and take roots. In this prayer you can see a broad vision of everything we are about. Please read this once and then pray it once:

"God our Father, we pray, in the name of Christ Jesus our savior, that our community would be built on lifelong friendships, as we journey toward you. Jesus is the vine, God is the vinedresser, the Holy Spirit is the sap, and we are the branches. Help us to abide in you, bearing in fecundity the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We pray that your kingdom would come to our world, that you would remove the curse of evil, and that we could be a part of your rescue mission to a lost and dying world. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen."

To frame this prayer a little better, I would like to use the metaphor of a ship at sea.

1) The Ship: The beginning of the prayer is about the ship itself, an emphasis of a community built on lifelong friendships and the integrity of the Trinity. Every person of the Gathering is an important part of the ship and only respect, love, and an egalitarian attitude (based on dependence on the Father and modeled after Christ) will keep us together and afloat. When people support and love each other, in the way that Christ supports and loves us, our ship's integrity is strengthened and remains unsinkable. Every person has a ministry, a calling, a part, and a role to play.

2) The Wind: The next part is about abiding in Jesus and bearing the fruit of the Spirit. This ship is a sailing vessel and will not move without wind. The Holy Spirit is the wind of our community. The people of our community depend on prayer, knowing God personally, and having our hearts transformed by his power, to be the people he's called us to be. The Holy Spirit, and a passion for his presence, is the only thing that can make our community move.

3) The Destination: The prayer ends with "the kingdom," "removing the curse of evil," and "a rescue mission." One author put it this way; spiritual formation (that is having our hearts transformed by God) is being changed into living like Jesus "for the benefit of others." A ship may be strong, and you may have wind, but it's meant to go somewhere. In the Gathering, we believe that the world has serious problems that can be changed, transformed, and renewed by living the commands that Jesus gave us- commands like caring for the poor, protecting the vulnerable, loving our enemies, forgiving those who have hurt us, living truthful lives, and blessing people that we come in contact with. That is to say, we hope that the ultimate aim is to have our offices, schools, parties, bars, churches, governments, institutions, and next door neighbors touched by the love and awesome blessing of Jesus. That is, we want our local cities to be actually changed by the work of the Gathering, for the better, forever.

Is this something you want to be a part of? Come to the Gathering, get involved, and take initiative. Spread this vision to others and see what God can do in Orange County.

Georgia and Russia

Georgia is one of those countries that most people have never heard of. I actually met a guy from Georgia and before that I'd never even heard of the place. Georgia is a country (not a state) that broke free from the Soviet Union after its collapse. The sad thing is that there are provinces in Georgia that are filled with Russian people and to simply give back these regions would dice up the country. This still doesn't change the fact that Russia's invasion of Georgia is an unethical act of injustice and warmongering. This echoes many of the events that started World War I when the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (yes that was his real name) led to the outbreak of the deadly and pointless Great war.

As Christians we are to continually pray for peace and justice. Russia's unethical annexing of Georgia could lead to a greater global conflict, not to mention shifts in the election of America's next president, and the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pray, pray, pray. This is much bigger than most are willing to admit.

Looking for Adventure

I just finished doing what Mark calls the "Coastal Challenge." Mark, Kris, Scott, Steve, Ander, (and Ricky almost), and myself went right after church on Sunday. We crawled from Dana Point all along the Beach to Laguna climbing up and down rocks and cliffs, navigating through rocks while swimming through tumultuous waters. When we hit sand we jogged. We all have cuts and bumps and bruises but it was awesome.

Eldridge made the point that men need an outlet for adventure, and though his analogies can be cheesy at times, he really has a point. We had such an awesome time even though it was decently dangerous and exhausting. Eight miles of that stuff isn't easy. So gentlemen, stop playing video games and watching TV and go do something awesome this week.

Nepal Photos

We just returned from Nepal and we had an awesome time! The very first thing I want to do is say thank you to all the missionaries who put their heart and soul into this trip. So many of you did what it took to, not only raise the $3,600 to go, but worked incredible hours in incredible conditions to make sure the Nepali people heard the gospel and got their medicine. You truly are being used to bring the Kingdom of Christ here and now.

For all of you who didn’t get to go, we have some amazing stories to tell. Nepal is on the other side of the world and is the home of the infamous Himalayan Mountains, which includes Everest. Until a few weeks ago, it used to be illegal to talk about your faith and if you’re caught you could spend as much as three months in prison. The communist underground kicked the King out of office and allowed all religious tolerance. Tolerant Communists? Who knew?

Anyway, we handed out four-hundred pairs of glasses, tons of antibiotics, found a number of people with heart disease and diabetes, and led hundreds of people to the Christian faith. We were chased down by mobs of brick throwers for breaking the travel strike, drove over landslides, hiked to villages, worshiped in strange places all hours of the night, and probably encountered more germs then the sum of our lives before this trip. All in all, it was wonderful. Thanks everybody for a great adventure and I can’t wait till we go again. Below is a slideshow of pictures from Hannah and me, and here's a link to them. Some of Nathan's are also online. If you other missionaries are reading this and want to add some, send them to Josh at Josh@ocgathering.com

On-line Prayer

As we're talking about spiritual formation and prayer, I wanted to point you all to a great resource for prayer.  This is a website started by the Jesuits, a group of monastics that go all the way back to Ignatius of Loyola.  They have short 10-15 minute prayers every day and they're really nice.  The site is pray-as-you-go.org . 

Freedom In Knowing What You Want

It’s been said that being human means wanting what you can’t have. It certainly seams true that people always want those things that they see their friends, or even enemies, possess or enjoy. There is this idea that “someday” whenever we achieve or attain those things that flood our paradigm that we will actually be happy or complete in someway. We say to ourselves, “if only she loved me,” “if only I could dress the way they do,” “if only I had that new job,” “if only I could get my education.” It’s all the things that “happy” people seam to have. But do these things really make people happy, fulfilled, worth something? Are the people that have attained what we so greatly desire actually happy or do they just look happy? Are they really enraptured with life or just another part of a grand list of actors playing their part? If they are truly happy, it has very little to do with attaining any of these things- rest assured.

But don’t some things make people happier? As the comedian once said, “you never see unhappy people on a wave runner!” In truth no, though some people may become more entertained for the fleeting moment, they are not really happier because happiness doesn’t come from getting what other people have, it doesn’t come from conquering, it doesn’t even really come from attaining goals. All the joys we experience in these moments are fleeting and fading like the wise Qohelet proclaimed in Ecclesiastes- all of these are vanity, are nothingness. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that acquisition of goods, people, or goals, will make you happy in and of themselves as long as they remain the ends and not the means! That is to say, as long as any of these things simply stand on their own without any higher meaning or purpose, they stand to make you only unhappy in the long run because when you finally achieve what you thought would make you happy, you realize that it won’t. You are like Alexander the Great who after conquering the whole world sat on a tree stump for there was nothing left to possess. At least before you had the hope of being happy! Now your disillusionment is consummated in the presence of attaining what it was you always wanted. What despair there is for the man or woman who attains what he or she thought would make them happy but never could!

What then is there? Is life just an emptiness, an ether of chaos, a world of endless mirrors like the post-modern prophets suggest? Actually no, there is a point to it all. But the point is not to attain glory, recognition, goods, or even love of people. This endless and worthless pursuit of shadows for the hope of fulfillment and joy is not only a lie, but makes the people who believe it slaves; slaves of fragmented mind and soul.

What then is the truth and where can freedom be found? The greatest human being to ever live, the God-man said that the truth would set us free. So what is this Truth? The truth that brings freedom and life is this- there is only one thing- the eternal good in truth. The man or woman who cares only for, is completely enraptured with, is possessed by, is obsessed with this one thing, the eternal good, has found freedom and life. The man or woman who says, “all I want in life if for the eternal good to be, always, no matter what, by any means” has finally found freedom because then all life’s moments, goals, and possessions are a means, a stepping stone to the eternal good and have eternal lasting value.

The man or woman who desires only the eternal good, just this one thing only, finds freedom because they realize emptiness of things that are not eternal and the fulfillment of things that are. Everything is measured by this litmus test. She is free from what people say about her, what people expect her to do, what she has or doesn’t have. The only thing that matters is the eternal good. He no longer must meet the approval of people in the way he dresses, in the house or car or job he has. The only thing that matters is the eternal good in truth. The fragmented soul who desires the eternal good in truth finds healing and wholeness in its life and power. The insanity of a double-minded person finds focus and a reason to live in the purity of its singularity. The one who is a slave to the eternal good is the one who has truly found freedom and purpose and life. Oh that we may desire the Eternal good in truth always and only, just as our Lord Jesus Christ does, that we may find true joy and fulfillment that will last.

The real freedom is in knowing what you truly want. Most people think they know what they want but they really do not- it’s typically an ever changing list of things. But when you realize that our souls really want the Eternal Good in Truth, and this thing only, though we may not attain it always, knowing that this is what our hearts desire brings the true freedom.

Update from Nepal

We are having an awesome time here. This is the prettiest country I've ever been to. Imagine Swizterland and Vietnam having a baby, and it would be Nepal.

Keep us in your prayers. We've had a number of people come to faith from Hinduism, which is a big deal as many of them will be rejected by their friends and family. Also we've done a bunch of clinics and found heart disease and diabetes in some of the patients, which means we saved their lives. Also it's been so awesome to put glasses on people that haven't seen in a long time.