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This week at Buckhead Church we had the privilege of hearing from Scot McKnight (http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/).  Several years ago he wrote a book called The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others and his sermon on Sunday set up what the Jesus Creed is and how you can apply it in your life.

Considerable time was spent telling the story of the Shema, the Jewish prayer.  “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deut.6:4-5 NIV )  To hear the complete message go to: http://www.buckheadchurch.org/messages

The central idea: How do you love God and how do you love other people?  There are 613 commandments in Jewish law all of them can be separated into loving God and loving others according to Dr. McKnight.  He also points out that Jesus was able to break down these 613 commandments into two commandments.  This is the Jesus Creed:  “…’Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no commandment greater than these.”

Obviously this is a VERY watered down explanation, however, it is sufficient to proceed and answer the questions!

Dr. McKnight asked a very interesting question during his sermon: “Who annoys you?”  I have to admit that my list wasn’t a short one: people that don’t know how to drive, people that don’t pay attention to their surroundings, people that walk on the wrong side of the hallway in the mall, etc.

I think identifying your neighbors that you should love as yourself is pretty easy.  Doing something about it is the hard part.

Question 1: How are you showing your neighbors that you love them like you love yourself?

I know you won’t believe this, but in my Journal during the worship service I put a note in about Billy Mays.  This was about an hour before we all went to lunch and I saw a twitter about his death.  His show, “Pitchmen,” is one of my new favorite shows.  The show follows Billy and Anthony Sullivan as they work with would be inventors to market their products via “As Seen on TV” ads.

The rules for accepting a product are set in stone by Mays and Sullivan: It must be something that fills a need (solves a problem), It must be easily explained, It must have a sort of “wow” demo – proof that the product does what it says, and it must have the right pricing structure. (Paraphrase from an Article by Scott Pooler, Tampa Internet Business Examiner).

In much the same way this is what the Jesus Creed calls us to do with our lives.  Jesus fills the needs of our neighbors, grace is easily explained, it doesn’t cost anything, and most importantly: If we will just love others in the way that we love ourselves that will be one MAJORLY impressive demo!

Question 2: How are you doing in your infomercial?

The final point from Sunday was how to live out the Jesus Creed.  In Matthew 10:42 Jesus says, “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”  Jesus calls us to use whatever we have to turn everyday people into everyday neighbors.  Even something as small as a cup of water.

I couldn’t help but think about the fountains downtown in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta.  These fountains are more like gysers that have been placed in the pavement and during the summer children will run back and forth in the fountain getting wet.  The jets of water shoot up from the ground at random and catch the children by surprise.

On December 31, 2003 my friend Bryan Bland was running through the fountain trying not to get hit by the cold water on a very chilly December night.  He was successful in making it through everytime except the last time.  Just as he was about to get through for the last time a jet of water sprang up and soaked his back and part of his pants.  He wasn’t expecting to get wet.

Those fountains should represent our desire to not only provide those in our lives with a cup of cold water, but to SOAK them with cold water when they least expect it.  We have buckets of water at our disposal.  Scot McKnight challenged us to live the Jesus Creed for a month to see how it changes us.  Let’s not be content this month to simply hand out cups of cold water.

Let us pour that water over our cities and our towns.  Let us give that water to our families, our coworkers, our friends, and most importantly to those people that annoy us.

Question 3: Who do you need to pour water on this month?

Question 4: What are you waiting for?

I am a little late this week in getting out the Sunday Conversation!  I was out of town last weekend and just got a chance to listen to Andy’s message yesterday.  After hearing it I am kind of glad I am a little late getting this out because it gives everyone a chance to practice!

My brother is a really funny and talented guy.  He is the kind of guy that attracts attention without even trying.  We were eating at our favorite Chinese restaurant back home in Fayetteville, NC a few years ago and he launched into the story about his tonsillectomy.  Somewhere, about 3/4 of the way through the story I looked around the restaurant and everyone was paying rapt attention.  Some people had even turned their chairs around to listen.  That is my brother.  However, don’t ask him to tell a story, sing a song, tell a joke, or perform in any other manner or you will likely hear this, “Nope.  This isn’t dance monkey dance.”  Obviously this is a reference to the organ grinder monkeys that dance on command when someone drops a coin into their canister.  He sometimes grows weary of people wanting him to perform, its as if he knows that they expect him to do something funny or great at the drop of a hat.

This weeks message from Andy Stanley was the last in the series “Staying In Love.”  The focus of this message was on the gap between expectations and behavior in relationships.  Andy says that when expectations differ from behavior you have two options: Assume the Worst or Believe the Best.  Andy suggests that we can all agree on certain Biblical definitions of how love should look.

Read I Corinthians 13:4-6

Question 1:  How can you improve on these areas in your relationships?

Part of this gap in the expectations is due to past experiences.  As Andy mentioned in his message, Verse 7 is pretty hard to believe.

“Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Each of us has experienced times in which each of these were not true in our relationships.  Whether it was a parent, boyfriend, girlfriend, Fiance, Wife, Husband, child, etc.; each of us finds that verse hard to believe because we have experience that teaches us that it does not really work that way.

Courtney and I decided this week to try as hard as we can to “believe the best” about each other and try to put verse 7 into practice.  I can tell you that its not easy.  Its not that I don’t believe Courtney wants the best for me.  Courtney doesn’t doubt my love for her at all.  Our past experiences get in the way.

Andy introduced us to Mr. and Mrs. Mug last week.  They were ordinary drinking mugs (think frost A&W Root Beer mugs) filled with blue or pink beads.  The beads were meant to be all of the past, hurt, pain, “anti verse 7″ things that each of us bring into relationships.  These beads come from our past experiences.  The reason that I had a hard time with verse 7 this week had nothing to do with Courtney and everything to do with me looking at her through the lens of my past experiences.

Question 2: Have you tried verse 7 with your significant other, boss, co-workers, etc.?

Question 3: What past experiences with relationships affect your ability to live out verse 7?

I listen to a radio show on G105 (WDCG, 105.1FM) from Raleigh, NC called Bob and the Showgram.  Its a morning show that at times can be crude and is definitely not safe for the whole family due to the nature of many of their conversations.  However, there are times that are truly profound.  Bob Dumas is the ringleader of the show and he says of marriage, “You can be right or you can be happy, but you can’t be both.”

I couldn’t help but laugh a little as Andy explained that you can be right, right, right, but if it gets in the way of believing the best then you won’t be happy.  Once again, Bob Dumas hit the nail on the head.  The goal in your marriage shouldn’t be to win.  Its not a competition.

Marriages like these evolve into old western movies.  One person holds the gun and slings bullets of unmet expectations at the feet of their partner and says, “Dance monkey, dance.”

Question 4: Do you find yourself trying to win in your relationships?

Question 5: Does your significant other think you are trying to win your relationship?

I am getting married on June 6, 2009.  As a part of our ceremony we are having a responsive reading.  I asked my Dad to write the responsive reading in such a way that it not only challenges Courtney and I, but also challenges everyone else in attendance.  I have taken the liberty to change all of the “we’s” into “I’s”.

Read this to each other, then switch parts and read it again.

Reader 1: When I feel agitated and irritable within, I am tempted to be harsh and pushy.

Reader 2: Love is patient.  Love is kind.

Reader 1: Sometimes I get resentful when others receive attention which causes me to overstate my importance and become showy.

Reader 2: Love does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud.

Reader 1: If my heart is unguarded, I can easily become abrasive and self-centered. I become short tempered, and I want to keep score.

Reader 2: Love is not rude; it is not self-seeking; it is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs.

Reader 1: Sometimes I want to look at the weaknesses in others instead of the good that is trying to grow in them.

Reader 2: Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth.

Reader 1: When life gets hard, I find myself wanting to quit.

Reader 2: Love bears all things.

Reader 1: My mind is prone to doubting.

Reader 2: Love believes all things.

Reader 1: Sometimes I become negative and cynical.

Reader 2: Love hopes all things.

Reader 1: There are days when the weight of responsibility seems more than I can bear.

Reader 2: Loves endures all things.

Reader 1: What do I do, when I don’t know what to do?

Reader 2: Love never fails.

It is my hope that you will read this with your partner regularly.  Memorize it.  Live your life in such a way that others can recite these words just by seeing your relationship in action.  I agree with Andy:  The world will be most impacted for Christ if couples can put these truths into practice.

Question 6: What is one thing you can do to start living these words now?

Next Sunday Conversation coming up soon!!  (I promise it won’t be a week late!)

As most of you probably know my Dad is a minister in North Carolina.  When I was growing up my Dad and Mom would always have a discussion with me and my brother during lunch on Sunday about our Sunday School lesson and/or the sermon that my Dad just preached.  It was a great way for my brother and I to reconnect with the things that we learned at church.  I noticed that at Buckhead Church they provide similar tools for parents and their children with KidStuf, in the form of a “to-go” box of activities parents can do with their kids during the week.

While I was sitting in Church this morning listening to Andy’s sermon I started thinking about how I, as an adult, could somehow make a connection later this week with the stuff Andy was talking about on Sunday morning.  I began to jot down some questions that I was going to go through with Courtney this week to help us reconnect with what we heard this morning.  As I began to jot down these questions (which I think are pretty good and thought provoking) I wondered if others might like a semi-formalized way to reconnect this week.

So here’s how it works.  I will post some thoughts and questions about the message here on the blog.  At some point during the week you sit down and take 10-15 minutes to work through the questions.  (I recommend doing this with a partner.  Your husband/wife, fiance, boyfriend/girlfriend, roommate, accountability partner, friend, etc.)  The point is to talk through these questions with someone else.  (Even on the phone.)  I don’t need or want a report on your answers.  (Except the first week…I do kind of want to know if you like the questions, idea, etc.).  I just think this would be a great way for us as adults to have the lessons we learn on Sundays firmly planted in our hearts and minds.  Please feel free to forward on to anyone that might like this.  Without further ado…

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