Author: Jonathan Dodson

Could Every Day be Marvelous?

Posted on October 8, 2013

This morning I stumbled out of bed after waking up twice to the moans of two of my children. Our two year old is in a “climb out of her bed at midnight and get in mommy and daddy’s bed” phase. My eldest son woke up nauseated and dry-throated. By the afternoon, I was driving to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, that the doctor didn’t charge us to prescribe, and paid fifteen dollars for a ten day cure for my son’s strep throat.

After breakfast, I went for a walk in our neighborhood trails, tree covered and cool, with my wife and kids. My two year old repeatedly said “Hold you,” which means she wants me to hold her. I carried her tiny body around, taking in stretches of plant green, wide-bladed St. Augustine, splinter bark of junipers poking out and up, and guided her tired body through the crushed granite maze. Over a year ago, we received about thirty thousand dollars to make our home affordable.

After a few slices of pepperoni over lunch with an old friend, we walked over to his office, where I got to talk about the unbelievability and hope of the resurrection with the designers at Ptarmak, who are working on covers for my two new books. You just feel creative in their space. They took me on, not because of the profitability of my work but because they are genuinely excited about the projects. I walked away with every confidence that the great art will wrap up the great truths I’m trying to unpack.

I ate dinner with my family, and enjoyed their company, before heading out to teach a class on interpreting poetry to a community I know and love. Together, we got into, under, and around the word so that we can live the truly good life, the blessed life, as we delighted in God’s law and marveled at its wisdom and grace, manifested supremely in the faithful and true Psalm one Man.

Today was marvelous. Sometimes it didn’t seem like it. Interrupted sleep. Sick children. Suspense on cover art. Curious if my teaching would be clear, true, and most of all, carried by the Spirit into the hearts of our people.

Looking back, it was marvelous because Christ was sustaining the created order for me to enjoy, sustaining me to enjoy my kids, well ahead of me in lining up a design firm and a gospel opportunity, present as his word was taught, compelling us all to be fruitful trees planted in the life-giving counsel of Christ. I wish I saw every day like this, backwards, through the eyes of Jesus.

Gravity: A Brief Review

Posted on October 7, 2013

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Gravity is so superbly shot you will walk away needing a massage. At times I felt like I was floating, then spinning, but for most of the time just tense. And I do mean just. Tendons strain and muscles tighten under moments of intensity only to release a feeble message. The actors handle the script like pros. Clooney and Bullock were believable, and unbelievable when need be. It’s a classic case of a mile wide and inch deep messaging. So for the wide-ranging exploration of our raison d’ etre, Alfonso Cuaron gets a nod. He covers a lot of space in the human exploration for meaning in life.

Curaon gives us a stunning view of the earth. The sunrise, the silence, and burning urban towers that dot our geography, paint a gorgeous backdrop for the film. In a film about space, the earth takes up an awful amount of space, and I am grateful. These shots endeared me to our remarkable planet, to its beauty and diversity and uniqueness. All this comes to a screeching halt, when Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) collides with a series of obstacles. She runs gamut of coping solutions as she encounters trial after trial. Humor, human connectedness, anger, sorrow, resolve, and spirituality. While searching her soul in a moment of clarity, she remarks “I’ve never prayed. Nobody every taught me to pray.” If that’s not a call for evangelism, I don’t know what is. We get a darting glance at a couple deities–Buddha and Jesus–but Ryan moves quickly past God to her deceased daughter.

Interestingly, she recognizes the need for a mediator to talk to her daughter, presumably because she is with God or in heaven of some sort. Her choice isn’t someone who can bridge the chasm between God and man–the Christ–but her late friend and astronaut, Matt Kowalksi. She asks him to tell her daughter that she loves her, and that she found the red shoe she was looking for under the couch. It is touching, and anyone who has lost a child will be able to identify with the longing to have one last word. Isn’t is curious that her Matt-mediated prayer she mixes the mundane and the profound–a shoe and love? What a great reminder to cherish the mundane moments with our children, to love them in the ordinariness of legos and lost shoes.

Moving on from the past and into the present, Bullock forces her way through each obstacle with tremendous will power. She battles each demon with fierceness of spirit and determination to “have one hell of a ride.” Matt’s voice seems to prod her on to survive, and survive she does. One of the closing shots says it all, a forceful foot in the mud, bearing the weight of her tense and wobbly, gravity-ridden body, she sticks her landing to put two square feet on the ground. I made it. You  can do it. We will survive. However you want to say it, the film is a cinematic beauty, tense thriller, and an ode to the human will to survive. Unfortunately, it is vaporous on why we should will ourselves through this life. There is no fixed truth, no depth of contact with the divine, no summit of human purpose. But to its credit, many of these issues are raised, and in an age of comfort, distraction, and hype, that’s much more than we are used to.

3 Gems for Elder/Pastors

Posted on October 5, 2013

Whether you are flourishing or struggling as an elder or pastor in your church, you need a dose of these vitamins from Jared Wilson’s The Pastors Justification. And even if you aren’t a pastor, these quotes carry wisdom for everyday Christian character.

If you are a loudmouth boaster, your church will gradually become known for boasting. If you are a graceless idiot, your church will eventually become known for graceless idiocy. The leadership will set the tone of the church’s discipleship culture, setting the example for the body’s “personality.” (47)

Marital faithfulness often means others forsakenness.You are not one flesh with your church, but with your wife…Wife and family first, church second. This means pastors are first charged with pastoring their family. Indeed, one cannot even be allowed to pastor a church if he cannot or will not pastor his family. (51)

The pastor is to practice self-control at all times, including (if not especially) in his solitude. Can he have a drink without needing a drink? Can he surf the web without feeling the tractor beam of porn? Can he prepare his sermon or research a writing project online without surfing the web at all? Can he spent long unhalting periods of time reading a book or listening to sermon audio? Can he read a critical letter without becoming sinfully self-defensive and self-justifying? Can he hear the success of others and not covet or begrudge? (52)

ACL Fest & Neighborhood Churches

Posted on October 4, 2013

This weekend in Austin, our city will be flooded with worshippers. Seventy-five thousand people who adore music, will gather at Zilker Park each day to take in the sounds of Austin City Limits. It’s iconic Austin. The festival has become so popular, we’ve started a second weekend for ACL. Since we get a lot of this music year round, some Austinites rent out their homes and bail from the city. Others stay and join the fun, still more try just to avoid the crowds. Parking pops up all over the city, signs for temporary parking poke out “Park Here $25 ALL DAY”, and throngs stream down Barton Springs to Zilker Park, lawn-chairs in tow, to stages of all sizes, people of all kinds, a music of every variety wafting out over the thousands of fans.

What Does City Life Church Do During ACL Fest?

People within City Life Church, respond to these weekends in similar and dissimilar ways. Some of our folks will perform, some will attend or volunteer, some will have merch booths, and others will just do life together as a counter-cultural community in the city. Instead of centralizing our Sunday gathering downtown, we free people up to enjoy good culture, make some cash, or dig into their community through Neighborhood Churches.

Neighborhood Churches

A Neighborhood Church is two or more missional communities in the same area of the city that share a common mission. These NCs share mercy ministry to the poor and the marginalized in their part of the city. They also gather together 4-5 times a year for fellowship, brunch, vision-casting, stories of grace, prayer, maybe some singing. The gatherings are open-ended. People love em. They can be great places to relax and be the church, get to know neighbors, and have a good time.

Each Neighborhood Church has an elder oversight, along with a leadership team comprised of three types of leaders from within the community. The leadership teams meet regularly to address three things:

  • Multiplication of Missional Communities
  • Address Pastoral Concerns
  • Develop & Refine Missional Strategies

We recently stepped up our intentionality with leadership to make these better. We began with explaining the leadership types, the focus of NCs, and encouraging lots of prayer and strong leadership. To do that, we distributed a Neighborhood Church Worksheet for people to process through.

Neighborhood Church Worksheet

Neighborhood Churches Defined