Calendar

We now have an online calendar available for viewing.

It is located here, incorporated into our main website.

God on the Ground

Does your life feel crazy & chaotic right now? The hectic pace and demands on us at this season of the year are crazy. It seems like this should not be -- but actually it is a really great thing. Why? The closer you get to the profane, the closer you get to God. Paul told the Romans: "...where sin abounds, there grace abounds all the more."

The Christmas season brings out the absolute worst in us. It's the number one time for an intervention on a family member who cannot seem to pull it together!

That's exactly what God did. The world weas messed up, so He came to it. We're messed up, so He comes to us.

He doesn't wait until we're all cleaned up before He hangs out with us. That's what makes the Christmas story so great!

Here are three examples of how ungodly and profane and wicked the Christmas story is, and how perfect it is to find God in the midst of that.

Jesus' lineage was filled
with immmoral people
Matt 1:3 lists Tamar. Go read her story in Genesis 38 -- Tamar would be a great addition to the Jerry Springer show!

Matt 1:5 lists Rahab. She's another prostitute, but she's not even in the family!

Matt 1:8 lists Ruth -- another outsider, from the enemy! Sort of like having the President of Iran in your lineage...if you're an Israeli.

A later verse simply lists "Uriah's wife" -- that was Bathsheba, but they didn't even put her name there! It was too scandalous a story!

Matt 1:16 says this checkered lineage leads to Jesus. This is good news, but even in that last verse there's Mary: an unwed pregnant teenager whose fiance almost left her.

This is the bloodline from which Jesus came. He was a Jew. He was born into their chaos. Their history -- His history -- has some royalty in there but it is by and large full of messed up moldy-black moss-spots on the family tree.

In the incarnation Jesus brought together
the eternal sacred with the temporal profane.

The shepherds were irreligious
According to Jewish law at the time, the shepherds were unclean. They could not participate in festivals or feats, etc. They're excluded. They could not testify in a dispute because everyone just assumed they were liars.

Imagine you're God, and you're going to get the word out to people that the King was born...

When Prince Charles & Princess Diana had their boys, announcements and invitations went out to the hoity toity of the world in which they circulated. God told the shepherds.

It's like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir practices all year long, and then the curtain opens and who is in the audience? 8 guys from night shift. That's it!

Luke 2:1-20 tells the amazing story.

The Shepherds get the call. They probably assumed everyone else heard as well, so they expected a huge crowd of insiders who'd be there. No crowd. No mayor of Bethlehem. No city council. No religious dudes. They get there and there's Joseph and Mary, and a cow.

And the baby

"Wow, we get to see him real close!"

The Magi were foreign new-agers
Gold, frankincense, & myrh. Three gifts are listed so we assume there were three Magi, but we don't really know how many there were. Because of the social and cultural norms of the day we can assume they were men, but they weren't religious leaders. They weren't even Jews. They weren't eagerly waiting for the Messiah. They were from Iraq!

"Magi" comes from "magistrate" or possibly "magician" -- making the Magi sort of a cross between a politician and a pagan astrologer-priest.

Sadly, Christians meet people like that (today we call them [gasp] "New Agers"!) and put up the sign of the cross like they're Dracula or something. They certainly don't invite New Agers to be major players in the church's Christmas pageant.

But God did. He is not freaked out by the Magi. God spoke to them in a way they would understand, and respond.

What about the "good guys"? Why doesn't God speak to the High Priest; any priest? These guys fast and stay pure and are looking for the Messiah. And they. Get. Nothing! What's up with that? They'd paid their dues!

God isn't into rewarding us after we've "paid our dues" -- instead He simply comes to us when we need Him most.

The incarnation tells us that in our chaos, God comes. Christmas choas, emotional chaos, spiritual chaos. God comes in the midst of that.

It was the start of a pattern of living He would continue Go read Matt 9. Jesus is at Levi's house (Levi was [gasp] a Tax Collector!) and people ask what that's all about; how come He hangs out with the outcasts? He answers the critics by saying says He came to hang out with the people who need him most!

Read Matt 11. Jesus is accused of being a glutton for hanging out with "the wrong crowd" again. Jesus said

Umm. Yeah. See, I seem to blow away the line between what is sacred and what is profane BECAUSE YOU HAVE IT WRONG!

The incarnation is our model for ministry. People don't need us to preach to them or "try to save them!" -- people don't need someone trying to change them and tell them what is wrong and bad about them. They need someone to live and walk among them.

That's what Jesus did, and He calls us to be like Him: God-filled people, on the ground with other people.

The more we hang out with non-Christians the more we become Christians ourselves.

That's what Jesus did: He came through immoral people, he came to the outcasts and spiritually weird.

Those are the people to whom He chose to announce the coming of The Kingdom!

It inspires us to be like Him.

This year don't just celebrate the incarnation.

Be the incarnation.

Earn your Degree with TLC!

We are looking to start an extension for Trinity Learning Community here in San Carlos. TLC's vision is to prepare Christian leaders for the 21st century church. Our first goal as we partner with TLC is to get a Bachelor of Christian Studies (BCS) program going. We're hoping to start January 21st.

The BCS is a four-year program:
• 2 years online.
• 2 years on campus here in San Carlos. During these 2 years on campus, students will be personally mentored by a pastorally gifted leader holding an MA, M Div. or above.

Applicants need:

1. A high school diploma.
2. TLC will recognize any accredited Bachelors work towards our BCS degree.
3. The 2 years online will be $2,000 per year (practical & liberal studies) and the 2 years on campus will be $5,000 per year (Kingdom of God & Biblical Theology). Campus years are required for degree.

A normal BA in the state system costs
$15,000- $25,000 for 4 years.

Religious degrees cost around
$30,000 - $40,000 for 4 years.

That makes our $14,000 total
the lowest cost Bachelors degree in California!

Applicants receive:

1. TLC will provide all administration, student guidance, grading, oversight and assistance on financial aid.
2. A Bachelor of Christian Studies will qualify the student to register in our Masters of Ministry Degree program. We also plan a modular program for at-distance students. There are other ideas in the making.
3. Our Masters of Ministry Degree will qualify students to apply for Fuller Theological Seminary's Doctorate program in Missiology.

Time is of the essence!
Especially if students need financial aid. The first quarter's tuition is to be paid in full two weeks before the quarter. If you are interested please contact us at the Vineyard office, and also contact TLC's main office in Corona, California.

Incarnation

Did you see the new European import?Yeah! I read all about it in Car Nation magazine!

A bee stung you? Where'd it come from?It was in carnation!
Incarnation literally means "in the flesh"

The mystery of the humanity of Christ
is that He sunk himself into our flesh
~ Martin Luther

John 1:1-5, 14, 18

Jesus put on Humanity. He did not lose anything of His deity. He was not a hybrid; not a Prius. He never said "Hmmm, I've exhausted this one part of myself, so I need to tap into this other aspect of myself right now..." God became fully human and experienced everything we do as humans: a mind, emotions, a psyche.

What does the incarnation tell us?

1) It tells us what God is like (John 1:18): Jesus made God known. If we want to know what God is about, we don't have to guess. We can look at Jesus and see what makes Him passionate and angry and compassionate and sad and motivated. We can look at Jesus and see how God would respond to any person.

God demonstrated His love for us in this way:
while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
~ Paul of Tarsus

The incarnation also tells us what God is not like. We make God in our image, which is arrogant and tough and ruthless, like Zeus (it taps into our pride). The incarnation blows all that apart and says: "No, God is humble!". It is not that God was great, and became humble by stooping low. God is humble and stoops low: that is what makes Him great!

2) The incarnation tells us what it is like to be truly, fully, human! "Oh, well, I blew it...I'm only human" No! That is not human-ness. That is fallen-ness! What kind of humans did God design from the beginning? Look at Jesus. That's what God intended in the first place, before the fall. As the band Switchfoot puts it, There's a New Way to be Human

That new way to be human is the redemption of Jesus in our lives. He shows us what it is like to live without addictions, without nasty habits and problems within our depths; free from fear. In Jesus we see what it's like to not be religious, to be free from other's expectations, and free from having to maintain control. Free to tell the truth, Jesus was also free to hang out with those society rejects.

One of the aspects of Divinity is humility. Likewise, one of the aspects of humanity is humility. In John's day (in the height of Roman & Greek culture) no one saw humility as a good thing. Christianity came along and showcased humility as something good and noble. Why aspire to humility? Because God did!

Jesus became human, therefore all humans have dignity. If I take a little seed money and start a company and watch it grow, then that company has some value to me. But if I sell my house and put all my assets into a new start-up business, I would care a lot more about how that business does! Jesus became human. He became one of us. What does that tell us about our value to Him?

And here's something to bend your mind: He is still human. He became human, He died human, and He was resurrected human. He is still fully God and fully human; always will be.

3) The incarnation gives us hope in our lostness. He came and experienced things just like us: Pain. Hurt. Sadness. Sometimes in our pain, all we need is to just have someone be with us, not to say anything or do anything -- just to be with us. To sit with us and cry with us, and just be with us.

In the prophecies of Isaiah, Jesus is called Emmanuel which means: God with us.

As we lose our way, He walks with us. We arrogantly (and ignorantly) tell Him where we're going, and we make all these plans and go all these places with our hearts and lives...and He does not stop us. He lets us go wherever, but He walks with us. He is always with us. When we're tired, and when we're done, we can always grab His hand a little more tightly, and He will hug us, because He will always be with us. He will always have that finger that our tiny hands can reach up and grab.

He will always be there to lead us home.

He knows the way, and He knows how best to lead us there.

Because He became one of us, as a little baby.

Come walk among us.
Come walk among us Jesus.We know that we need You.
We know that we need You Jesus.You see our hearts,
You know that we're but dust.It's You who made us,
Lord in You we choose to trust.Come Lord.
Come Lord.