A Tree Planted by Streams of Water: A Chicago Update

It's been over a month since my wife and I moved to Chicago. It's been longer since I sent out any official update. And as I sit here thinking how exactly to describe what has happened in that time I am reminded of our very first weekend here in the city.

My wife and I took a walk along the beach of Lake Michigan that first Sabbath. She was surprised to see trees on the beach. She lived on the East Coast her whole life and so her experience of beaches was the ocean. Most trees do not do well with salt water. Her surprise caused me to stop and actually look at the tree. I was instantly reminded of Psalm 1. As I think back over this past month I realize that it is when I delight in the Lord that I am blessed and at peace.

Faith Like Abram: A Chicago Update

Abram’s family must have thought he was crazy. He left his family and the security of his ancestral home to go to a land that he did not know. More than that, he left to go to an unspecified place. He didn’t leave to go to a place he had heard of but never visited. He went to a completely unknown land. All he knew was that he needed to go.

I feel a bit like Abram. My wife and I will be moving to Chicagoland in September. We’re not moving because of a job. We don’t have those lined up yet. We’re not moving because we know someone. Neither of us have family in the area we’re moving to. We don’t even have a place to stay when we move there. What we do know is that God has called us and so we’re going. Against conventional wisdom, without friends and family, because we want to be obedient to God.

The Choice at the Tree

We make choices every day. We choose when to get up, what to wear and eat. When we choose, we use our judgement on what is the best choice. We do most or all of this without really thinking about it. Sometimes we come to an important decision and then we agonize over the right thing to do. But for most of us, our daily life is full of choices that we don't even think about.

For my second installment in this series, The Trees in Eden, I want to talk about the second tree: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Like the tree of life, we see echos of this tree throughout scripture. Where echos of the tree of life pointed us to temples, echos of this tree point us to crucial decisions. What I find fascinating about the echos of this tree is that every decision is really the same decision that Adam and Eve had in the garden.

How Should Christians Respond to Crisis?

At the time of writing this article, all anyone sees in the news is COVID-19. There is a lot of fear and confusion around the virus and it can become easy for Christians to get caught up in the chaos. We can under-react and pretend like this is going to be gone tomorrow. We can overreact, sell all our 401k stock, and buy a year’s supply of toilet paper. Neither of these options is helpful or really even Biblical.

I have seen many well-tempered and well-informed responses to this crisis from Christians. So many in fact, that I thought that perhaps my writing about this was redundant. But this is a series about engaging life with proper theology and so I decided to give my take on the issue. As always there will be a livestream to discuss. The livestream for this article will be Wednesday April 15th at 8pm EST.

Three Forgotten Temples

I think when most Christians think about temples in the Bible they have in mind one of two things. Either they think of the Tabernacle in the desert or they think of the Temple built by Solomon. These are in fact the most prolific temples. If you read Exodus you find out that the creation of the tabernacle was very specific in its lengths. When you get to Kings and Chronicles, Solomon dedicates the temple. This is the temple that gets destroyed by Babylon. It is at this place that Ezra and Nehemiah build the second temple. It's no wonder that this is the temple that comes to mind.

Yet there are three other temples. Three temples more important than the rest. One is the template -- the blueprint -- for all those that come after. If we don't understand it, we cannot truly understand any other. One does not look or feel like a temple. It is dark and seems hopeless. And yet it is this temple that gives us all hope. The final temple is full of light. It is a future temple. It is the temple as it was always meant to be. These are the three forgotten temples.

Fear, Climate Change, and Greta Thunberg

Back in December, TIME magazine named Greta Thunberg as their person of the year. Whether or not you agree with Greta Thunberg, this seemed like a reasonable choice. Last year she quickly became a household name. This is in no small part because of her stance on climate change.

Often discussions of Greta involve some talk of her age and whether or not that makes her worth listening to on social and political issues. Though I think there is a discussion to be had around those issues, that is not the point of this article. What I came to realize quite quickly with Greta Thunberg, and what this article is about, is that the passion and urgency that she speaks with sounded very familiar. I began to realize that she sounded much like a fire and brimstone preacher.

God's Plan for Us in Chicago and How You Can Help

About six months ago my wife and I informed our church that we were planning on church planting in Chicago. This was not really anything new for us (we've been talking about this since we were dating), but I think that was the first time some people in our church heard that was our plan. I say our plan, but the truth is that this is God's plan. More on that later.

Since informing our church, we have had several conversations with people who want to give us advice on what to do. This ranges from people who think we should not go to Chicago (at least not at first) to people who have a very specific way that they think we should church plant. I think most of these people are well intentioned. They are trying to help. They are not helping.