Under the INFLUENCE

I saw a police officer pull over a guy in Joshua and had him walking the line for a sobriety test. He was obviously under the influence and it wasn’t the Holy Ghost. I felt sorry for him knowing how much trouble he was in, yet grateful for the police officer at the same time. That’s a paradox and I like that. There are lots of paradoxes in Christianity.

I do a lot of prison ministry, in fact my band Joshua Rising, is recording a live CD in the Eastham Unit next month. I love those guys behind bars. Yet, at the time I always leave those units saying, “Thank God for prisons.”

You love justice for your society yet you love the individual offender as a human being that needs help. To me, its not confusing, it just a little funny.

Since seeing that brother under the influence, I’ve been thinking about that word. According to Webster, influence is the power or capacity of causing an effect on someone.

Jesus said something about influence when he said; whoever is the greatest servant has the greatest authority. Because of this, I often say, “The way to the throne room is through the servant’s quarters”. You gain powerful influence in people lives by serving them in a way that is valuable. Value is everything when it comes to influence.

Feeding For Influence

Last Saturday our food outreach to the poor fed 139 local families (about 550 people) with over 12,000 pounds of good groceries. Like every week, there was a lot of hard work involved. The groceries are not free, yet we freely give them away. The event only lasts for a couple of hours yet there are hundreds of man-hours involved with every outreach.

I point blank tell people up front why we are such radical givers to them. Number one, because Jesus loves them and number two, because we want an opportunity to influence them towards something much better.

The church lost its influence in America when the church lost its value in our society. We have been moved to the margins because we are no longer about serving those around us. God help us to stop building our personal empires and be about building the Kingdom.

The Offer Of Influence

The Mafia’s way of gaining influence is through making you an offer you can’t refuse. Islam is marching through the world doing the same thing. Their way is through terror and Jihad. In both extreme and mainstream cases of Islamic ruled cultures, women are treated worse than animals and children abusively taught to hate and to fear.

We Christians point out how horrible that is, yet tend to use some of the same tactics and have the same mindset. No, we are not making women wear burkas and forbidding them to be educated, but many of us try to gain influence through being combative and overbearing. Our tactics of intrusion and invasion simply don’t work.

Kris Vallotton says that many times we believers become combative instead of “honorably confronting” and we should be demonstrating the benefits of a superior kingdom. When we combat instead of demonstrate, he says, “We reduce our influence to the small pond of the church and render ourselves powerless to the ocean of humanity.” Preach it Kris.

The Brewer takes influence as a very serious issue. If good people don’t have the influence in our culture, then I promise you someone or something else will.

Silence of the Lambs

In the mid eighties, I knew a part time preacher that made a living by working in a slaughterhouse in Cleburne. He loved the meat market and the trade of cutting meat. Out of the blue, Weldon called me one day and said, “Troy you’ve got to come down here and see something.” It was something that would impact my life.

When I pulled up behind the processing plant I saw a pen with about a hundred bleating sheep and they were totally freaked out. The door to the processing plant and to their death was wide open and all the sheep scurried to stay away from it. They huddled together on the opposite side of the pen careful to not go anywhere near that chute. Somehow they knew what it leads to.

My friend told me that unlike cows, when sheep get to the plant they have an awareness of impending doom. He said, “Isn’t that something, how they know better than to go inside?” then he confidently said. “Now watch this.”

A moment latter he released two goats into the same pen. They ran to the herd and mixed in with the sheep. After a few minutes they seemed to calm and Weldon rattled a bucket with feed. At once the goats jumped from the herd and into the chute of the slaughterhouse. To my surprise, one by one, all of those sheep that earlier wouldn’t have anything to do with going inside, followed the goats and with the last one in, Weldon closed the door. It was a big metal door and made a dramatic sound that sent a chill down my spine.

Weldon smiled. “You see that? Be careful of goats in your life, Troy.”

That’s a sermon on influence I would never forget.

You can reach The Brewer at www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

On Coffee and Commitment

So here I sit in the local Starbucks listening to the currant sounds of coffee playing though the speakers. I casually sip on a cup of Pumpkin Spice Latte while downing my second Americano with soy and a Splenda. This is America’s Crack house.

As I write notes, I glance around at my fellow java junkies. Like so many other Americans, the Brewer needs his daily fix to define the day. We also need to chase away the threatening menace of the non-caffeinated migraine. Most don’t talk about it but my friends call it “the claw.” For those of us who stay highly caffeinated, we know that the beast must be fed. If not, terrible retribution will be taken upon us like an invisible alien wrapping itself around our throbbing heads.

The Daily Grind
My name really is Brewer and besides being fated to live up to my troublemaking name it is part of my DNA to consume large amounts of percolated pleasure. McDonalds should offer some kind of a “McCoffee” sandwich for guys like me. I imagine going to get a lap band and then surgically implanting a shunt to send coffee directly into my blood stream. I can invasion moving to Costa Rica and growing my own beans off the side of erupting mount Arenal. Oh, the things I will go through for just one serene bean. What else can I tell you; I love to drink coffee.

I love to love things. I do not want to be over compulsive but I like to play with the idea of it. There have been days when I've had too much and it caused me to be over stimulated and under motivated all at the same time. That’s not good. But I do love-to-love things and not just coffee. To me it’s kind of a loyalty thing. I’m big into loyalty. I love allegiance, commitment and sold out devotion. These are qualities and vices in people that really get my attention.

Holy Grounds
As a pastor I see how messed up the whole ecclesiastical system can be and from a closer view than most. I love the church and when I say the church I mean the body of Christ. People of faith who really love Jesus and also love other people. But oh my goodness how I hate a bunch of the religious junk that we tend to operate in and pass off as no big deal. I believe Jesus Christ is totally anti-religion. He was 2000 years ago, and He still is today.

A lot of religious people will show you their degree and spout off on their “calling.” They will boast on their talents and their qualifications about ministry. They look under their glasses at us lesser people in dignified snootiness on how blessed the rest of us are to have them contribute to the body of Christ gene pool.

I really don’t think Jesus gives a rip about our talents or degrees. I think he qualifies people that are faithful; God loves people that are selflessly devoted. I don’t think He cares about who’s got the coolest collar, the closest parking space, the biggest hair or waves smoke on a rope. I do think He is looking to use people that will be committed. Even messed up people. I think God loves faithfulness and loyalty. I really do. I also think He gets tired of our excuses for why so many of us run off the reservation. We run off morally, spiritually, ethically and just plain run off sometimes.
(See proverbs 27:8)

He-Brews
So here I sit, a highly caffeinated Christian. Musing on things that matter. Hoping I am on the same page as the biblical author. Believing that God thinks I’m funny and is crazy in love with me. Standing on the fact that it is by grace we are saved and not of works lest any man should boast. And knowing for sure that a little bit of Jesus makes up for a whole lot of stupid.

I also pen this down as I spill a little more latte on my stained white shirt. Faithfulness loyalty, commitment and devotion matter. If nobody else sees it, God sees it. Like an animal on the endangered species list, solid committed Christians are getting harder and harder to find. I encourage you in the lord, to keep your self-committed. Even if it is only for an audience of one.

“Most men will proclaim every one of his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?” Proverbs 20:6

Dead Sea Christians

Last Saturday, we had the privledge of doing what we call a “monster” food outreach. We think of it in terms of a monster truck, a whole lot bigger than usual. We gave away more than 60,000 pounds of food, had a free garage sale and cooked more than a thousand hamburgers and hotdogs.

A lot of single moms and grand parents, who now have to raise their grandchildren, came out for several pallets of free diapers. Others came for the free haircuts from 7 professional hairdressers. We gave away more than 500 pairs of brand new shoes and thousands of dollars worth of new and used clothes, all in great shape. It was so much fun and we heard so many testimonies from very grateful people.

It takes a lot of money, a lot of time and a lot of hard work from a lot of giving people to make something like this happen. You might be reading this and wonder why in the world a church would do something like this, and that’s a question I love to answer. It is just as easy to answer why churches don’t make a difference in their community, as it is to answer why churches do, but let me show a picture that explains both.

Bodies of water
Over in the Middle East there’s a tear shaped lake, the locals call a sea. There are several things unique about this body of water and both are found in its very name. “The Dead Sea” is so full of salt and minerals that not a single fish can live in it.

Its 15 miles wide and over 50 miles long and from a distance its beauty is breathtaking. Once you get closer you find its safer to drink dirt then it is to drink from the Dead Sea. Its contents are more than 42% salt and otherwise toxic minerals and the water is so thick with it, you can’t even sink.

At 1300 feet below sea level it’s officially the lowest place on earth and there lies the reason it can’t support life. Because every other place in the world is literally “up hill,” water goes in and nothing goes out. The same water that carries in salt and minerals from the land usually carries out those same materials into other lakes, but not this one. This lake is an eternal geographical receiver and nothing flows out whatsoever.

I’m scared to death of being a “Dead Sea Christian” in a Dead Sea church. We give away more than a million pounds of food every year to people that may never help us in any way because we have so much life flowing into us, we had better have life flowing through us.

A lot of us Christians (and even churches) are positioned in life to continually receive. We take in and never give out. And just like that body of water, many of us have no life in us at all and some of our churches, while beautiful to look at, are more poisonous than life; giving because we only look to receive.

Just like the Dead Sea, you can’t get deep in those kinds of churches. They are full of shallow Christianity and fail to deliver up close what they advertise from far off. As said before, I am scared of being a Dead Sea Christian and confess that my selfishness has probably hurt more people than I’ve ever helped. It’s not something I’ve got a complete handle on, but a mark I am pressing toward by the grace of God.

By the time this is printed, I will be in India with my sixteen-year-old son, Benjamin. We will hanging out at our orphanage in Visakhaptnum and will also spend some time at the leper colony our church supports. Next weeks cup from the Brewer, should be one with a dash of curry in it. I hope to be able to write you from the far side of the world. Don’t forget to say a prayer for the Brewer and don’t you dare be a Dead Sea Christian.