wholly jesus [an interview with mark foreman]

Some guys just seem to get it. But let me back up a little bit first…

When studying Bible history it doesn’t (or shouldn’t) take long to pick up on some cultural differences between the ancient Eastern culture of the Hebrews and the modern Western culture that we now live in. Yet so many people read the Bible as if it were written by and to a modern Western culture. Doing so causes us to miss the point of much of the Holy Scripture. The sad thing is that too often this happens in churches all across America.

So it’s special when you meet someone who not only knows about these differences, but also understands how to apply them to our modern lives.

Mark Foreman is one of those dudes.

Mark is the author of a new book called Wholly Jesus: His Surprising Approach to Wholeness and Why It Matters Today. He’s the lead pastor at North Coast Calvary in Carlsbad, CA, and an associate professor at Bethel Seminary San Diego. He’s also the father of Jon and Tim Foreman of the band Switchfoot.

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Mark about his book, and you can catch all of that interview right here…

What do you think about what Mark shared? Is his challenge something that you’re up for? Is it something that you even agree with? What steps do you need to take today to make the kind of changes that he talked about?

Bonus links: You heard Mark share about his favorite Swtichfoot song, and many of you probably also enjoy my personal favorite… Dare You To Move.

[the 72 project] churches, zoos, and salt shakers

It is not a habit of mine to sugarcoat things. Every time I write one of these posts, I reread it over and over and find myself grimacing at the words I use. I want to clean it up, soften it, make it “PC”, water it down. I don’t like telling you that Malinda, sweet and beautiful as she was, had rotting teeth. I don’t like that I described the difference between how I was dressed and how the kids on the street in Nashville were dressed. I wonder every time I use the words “homeless” and “poor” if it will offend someone.

The truth of the matter is that we have met people who are homeless. They are dirt poor. In the end, I refuse to mince words. Malinda’s teeth were brown and rotting, and I’ll tell you that so that you understand that these beautiful people have to prioritize surviving on what amount of money they can get panhandling, and teeth sometimes come up low on that priority list. These people do not have homes like you and I. They are poor, they are dressed in what they can find or afford, they eat when it is possible, and they live different lifestyles than us middle class.

So again, I won’t water down what is happening on these streets. I hate that I am describing human beings in the way I am, but it is how it is, my friends. I have hugged men that smelled like urine. I have sat and talked to women who had no teeth at all. I feel like as Christians, we have become too clean, too comfortable, and so we struggle to reach out to these broken people who need Christ more than anything.

One of my favorite quotes is by Mark Batterson in his book, Primal. He said he went to the Galapagos Islands and saw all of the beautiful wild animals and was amazed. Then the next week, he went to the San Diego Zoo. Now the SD zoo is an amazing experience if you go, but compared to the raw, beautiful wildlife of the Galapagos Islands, Batterson was left thinking to himself, “I wonder if churches do to Christians what zoos do to animals.”

We tend to clean up our Christians, make them content with cushy status quo, and nurture that comfort. This is not how it should be. Jesus lived homeless. He left everything to serve others. If we are true followers of Christ, are we not supposed to leave everything to follow? Peter and Andrew left everything, their boats, their nets, their families, their entire livelihoods to follow this crazy man who told them he could teach them to fish for men. Their lives were uncomfortable, unusual, dynamic, and dangerous after that. That is the type of life we are called to as Christians. Following Christ is no soft pursuit.

We, as Christians, are the salt of the earth, as Christ declared (Matthew 5:13). And yet, as Arron Chambers puts it in his book, Eats with Sinners, “Salt in a saltshaker is worthless. Its value comes when it is poured out of the saltshaker.” Are we, as Christians, stuck in our salt shaker? How are we supposed to add flavor to this dull existence if we just sit in our saltshakers, in our church buildings? The world we were commissioned to love is outside of that building. It’s time to go!

Mike Yankoski was a student at Westmont in Santa Barbara, CA, a prestigious Christian university in a very wealthy and beautiful area. He left everything to live with the homeless on the streets for six months. What prompted this radical decision was a revelation one Sunday. He said that on that Sunday, he was suddenly shocked to realize he had driven twenty minutes past the world that needed him to be the Christian he says he is, to sit in a building, listening to a sermon titled, “Be the Christian you say you are.” The irony of it disturbed him enough for him to drop the comfort zone he had created all his life, and leave everything for the cold city sidewalks and panhandling on street corners.

Sometimes, in trying to bring God to the people on the streets, I find Him already there. The group of young people I hung out with on the streets in Nashville had put together very quickly that I was a Christian, so at one point while Rob was messing around on his guitar, Jay J shouted over to him, “Hey! Play that ‘imagine’ song. You know… that one about heaven.” Rob began to play something else, so Jay J decided to start singing a few lines to try and figure it out. “I can only imagine what it will be like when I walk by your side. I can only imagine what my eyes will see when your face is before me,” he sang. I joined him. “Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance for you, Jesus, or in awe of you be still?” Heather and Jackie were arguing over something. Rob was playing a country song on his guitar. The city cars and tourist noise enveloped us. But Jay J and I were there, offering up those few lines in worship, and I’m sure God appreciated it just as much as a church choir on Sunday morning.

I sometimes think the Christians here in the United States need to be truly disturbed. I hope and pray that Obama makes every day a challenge to be a Christian. It is not until we are shaken out of our comfortable salt shakers, released from our cush zoos, that we are going to be truly effective in this world. It is then that we will lift our hands to heaven in praise because it is in experiencing that overwhelming redemption that God has offered to this undeserving, broken world that we will feel and know at least a portion of God’s love for us.

Malinda may have had rotting teeth, but her smile was beautiful. Sleepy may live on the streets, but he knows God and he ministered to Viktor and I more than the pastor who preached to us the following Sunday. Jay J may have been shirtless, covered in tattoos, and sitting on that street corner, but his song of worship was just as sweet, if not sweeter than those you hear in church on Sunday. God loves these people, and so do I.

[Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." ] Mark 2:17

Get the latest updates for the seventy-two project.

book review: following jesus through the eye of the needle

What does it mean to follow Jesus? I mean, He was clear about what it meant to follow Him, right? Sure, He promised great reward, but He never said it would be easy. I’ve recently finished reading a great book that’s challenged me like few others. It’s called Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle: Living Fully, Loving Dangerously by Kent Annan (InterVarsity Press).

When Jesus talked about how difficult it is for the rich man to get into heaven, He pointed out that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle. Umm… regardless of how you interpret that, it’s obvious that it isn’t a simple feat. In this book Kent talks about how easy it is here in the United States to look around and find someone who has more money than us. That means we can point our fingers at someone else and say, “he’s the rich man that Jesus was talking about.” But as soon as we look outside of the gates of our comfy little world we’ve created, one starts to realize that we are that rich man… no matter how much or little we have.

Throughout the book we hear the stories about Kent’s time living in Haiti. These memoirs are (at times) uncomfortably raw and (always) refreshingly honest. He shares hopes that are birthed in a heart to please God. He shares fears that reveal exactly how scary it can sometimes be to trust God completely in a chaotic world where we don’t have nearly as much control as we like to think we have. But more than anything else he challenges the us to get a little uncomfortable no matter where we’re at.

Kent doesn’t just write this stuff, he lives it. These stories were written (at times by candlelight) while living in circumstances that most of us would have difficulty even imagining. He gave up a comfortable life to try to identify with the people that he felt called to minister to. In the process he lived in tin shacks that hold water about as good as a typical kitchen strainer. If privacy existed at all, it was easily violated. And even bathing takes on new meaning when it’s basically done with a ladle and a bucket of rain water. Kent didn’t just write from his heart, he wrote from this hard-earned experience.

I really wanted to read this book because I’m going to Haiti soon. Written and released before the January 12th earthquake, it seems that this book was very timely as many here in our comfy churches look to get a little uncomfortable to help one of the poorest nations in the world recover from a disaster that reportedly claimed over 200,000 lives. This book has enhanced how I pray for the people of Haiti, those who are doing long-term work down there, and others like myself who are helping through short-term trips. But I’m also challenged to find opportunities to follow Jesus through the eye of the needle even right here in my own community. I thought it was a great read, and it’s definitely one that’s made it onto the short list as one of my favorite books of all time!

[the 72 project] young and homeless

Now Nashville… Well it is a long ways from California, geographically and culturally. It’s a whole ‘nother world out here. This is not my first trip to Nashville, but this time my purpose is different; I’m here to see — really see with God’s eyes — the homeless and impoverished on the streets and serve them in whatever way I can. Today, I was walking through downtown merely taking in all of the flashing signs for saloons and music venues and the tourists all decked out in cowboy hats and Nashville memorabilia, wondering at the odd country-city culture. Engrossed in all of this, I almost passed a group of three young people leaning against a planter on Broadway Street. They looked liked locals to me so I didn’t have any reason to be interested in them — that is, until the girl on the end aggressively stuck out her hand and said, “Have any change?”

It was getting late and I had spent the majority of my day grocery shopping and caught up in my own interests. Those three words changed everything, however, revealing God’s purpose for my being there that day at that time. He has a funny way of doing that.

Immediately stopping, I explained that I had no change, but started talking to them about the weather (a storm had just blown through and left as quick as it came). There were two girls and a boy with a guitar. Heather, Jackie, and Rob. I came to learn that Heather and Rob were barely 20 and Jackie was 16. We were soon joined by Jay J, who was 21 and had been on the streets since he was 9 years old if you believe him.

In all of my helping with the homeless, this was my first encounter with anyone this young. Like all young people involved in the music scene, we talked about music and Rob played us some Johnny Cash and Tom Petty on his guitar. Eventually, I asked the girls if they needed shoes. They said they did, so I told them I had some in my car if they wanted to walk over there with me. They agreed and the boys joined us, so we all walked out to my car parked on a curb just outside the main street.

At my car, I helped the girls find shoes their sizes and fill up some bags to take with them. It was then that I remembered I had recently bought a little travel stove. It had one burner and ran on little tanks of butane. I pulled that out, along with a saucepan, a big can of refried beans, a can of corn, and a handful of Snapples. We then proceeded to sit on the curb in the middle of downtown Nashville, serving up and eating an odd but warm dinner for the five of us.

Coincidentally, earlier that day I had picked up the book, Eats with Sinners from a Christian book store. The back description reads, “In Jesus’ day, eating with someone acknowledged that person as an equal. Religious leaders considered it unthinkable for a Jewish teacher to eat with common people. But Jesus cared more about saving souls than saving face. So who are you eating with?” I didn’t read that until after my meal with my new friends, and it made me laugh.

I could have just given them the donations and walked back to downtown. I was well-dressed for a day in the city and had enough money to find some friends and have a nice dinner on Broadway. And the group I was with was a motley crew to say the least. Heather was wearing Jay J’s huge shirt, pulled over a white dress that had been soaked in the storm. Jackie was in pants that were torn up and a shirt slightly too small. Jay J was shirtless and in a wheelchair due to a foot injury. Rob was simply in dirty jeans and a t-shirt. And apparently I looked “like California”, in a simple black dress, an over-sized bracelet, faux Ray-Bans, and multiple facial piercings. The girls said I looked like some kinda rocker girl from Southern California. I guess they had me pegged. We were quite a ragtag group.

It was Rob who was the first to notice and get irritated by the leering passersby who intentionally drove on the wrong side of the road to put even more distance between them and our group on the curb. I just found it all entertaining. There I was creating friendships with young people my age who were ridiculously excited when I pulled out a bag full of candy. Two blocks away, cowboy-hat-wearing tourists dressed to the “T” were piling into the Hard Rock Cafe and the other upscale restaurants to spend more money on drinks alone than what our whole dinner had cost. I have to say, I was right where I was supposed to be and wouldn’t have traded places for anything.

Fortunately, I’ll be spending a few weeks here in Nashville, and I know that God has orchestrated this entire situation. I made sure to figure out how I could meet up with the young kids again and assured them I’d be back. And that I will. Jesus made friends with prostitutes, tax collectors, and fishermen. I have no reason not to befriend the young people that were scrounging for change from tourists on the streets of Nashville, and cannot wait to share more meals with them and get to know them better.

This week, I’d like to give you a challenge. I wholly encourage you to take someone out to coffee or lunch who you typically wouldn’t go out to coffee with. They could be homeless, a new coworker that you haven’t talked to much yet, a mother in need of a break from her kids, your grandma. Jesus often broke bread with those that others refused to associate with. He ate with sinners. He touched lepers. He talked to prostitutes. The least we can do is share coffee with someone in need of maybe just a friendly conversation. More often than not, God will bless you in the experience.

Get the latest updates for the seventy-two project.

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