Friday, May 13, 2011

Do You Need to Reboot?

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

Everyone loves a clean start! The week after Easter, my family vacationed in the San Diego area, and I found myself in a Jacuzzi late Monday night. A short while later, a man entered the pool and we struck up a conversation. This man seemed weary, much like me, but it wasn't a weariness coming from a hectic ministry season; his weariness came from a chaotic life of brokenness. We couldn't have been more different from each other. He was a foreign business executive who had made a series of poor choices and was experiencing the consequences of those choices.

During the conversation, my new friend allowed for a moment of vulnerability. Without knowing anything about me, he sighed and in his exhale said, "I just need a new start!"

"Isn't that the whole point of what we just celebrated yesterday?" I inquired. The words just came out of me. "Easter is about a comeback, a new start, a new beginning..."

The statement lingered, and the Holy Spirit fanned the flame of that ember into a lengthy conversation and the opportunity to pray for this man before we parted ways.

I left my Jacuzzi-turned-sanctuary experience blown away by God's sovereign grace. Think of all the contingencies that had to synchronize for that meeting to take place! What I thought was just a late-night Jacuzzi soak, God intended for a ministry experience that would have eternal ramifications! This man's life and my perspective were both rebooted because of that conversation.

Dictionary.com defines reboots this way: re - boot [v. ree-boot] -verb (used with object) to restart by loading the operating system again.

God is in the business of new starts -- reboots. Divine rebooting isn't just a one-time experience, but the ongoing result of continually living under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and having our thinking renewed by His power. Jesus makes all things new. While it is true that not yet Christians are in desparate need of a reboot, in so many ways followers of Jesus need a reboot in the way we think about our lives, the way we think about people we encounter every day, and the way we both engage and steward the relationships God has placed us in.

If we truly endeavor to be a People Changing Communities, we must not be consumed so much with having the right answers as we are by asking the right questions. Beginning this weekend, we are going to do just that!

Questions matter! Surely our lives must outlive our generation, but we also must be equipped to love God with all our minds and enter into a cultural dialogue with the character of Jesus.

For the next five weeks, we will be exploring four critical questions together:


  • What good is Christianity?

  • How do I love "the Other"? (2 weeks)

  • Does "Love Win" and how could a loving God create Hell?

  • Does faith contradict thinking?

Come humbly and inquisitively as we explore together how we can reboot our minds and experience a whole new way of thinking.