This Blog Has Moved

100 Foot Jesus has been camped here for a long time now, and as of today, it has moved.

Moved to a new web address, a better and easier to navigate website and will be available to you once to click over.

So spread the word, the new site is:

www.100footjesus.com 

The Charlie Grant in all of us…(you can be you)

I love baseball. There is something majestic and peaceful about it.

Some of the best times of my life have been spent with family and friends watching and discussing my beloved Cincinnati Reds.

It is fascinating. The only game where the defense gets to have the ball. The only game that has a long game time but very little actual playing in it.

One of the most interesting players in baseball history is Charles Grant.

Charlie was a second baseman around the year 1900. But since he was a African American, this only meant that he could have a small job of  working as a bellhop at the Eastland Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas for little pay to never realize his dream of being a major league player. There was a guy named  John McGraw, who was a owner and talent scout for the  and the new American League’s Baltimore Orioles began training that season in Hot Springs and staying at the Eastland. McGraw saw Grant playing baseball with his co-workers around the hotel and recognized that Grant had a level of talent suitable for the major leagues. McGraw decided to disguise the light-skinned, straight-haired Grant as a Cherokee and gave him the name Charlie Tokohama, because it seemed more feasible for a Native American to play pro ball than a black man.

It was all going well and through training and practice, Grant actually earned the spot as starting second baseman for the Orioles, ten years before Jackie Robinson would officially break the color barrier for the Dodgers.

The stage was set and good old Tokohama was almost ready to play, when, they went to his home town of Chicago for a game and many of his black friends showed up, so excited that he was the 1st black player, held a small ceremony for him and even presented him with a bouquet of flowers.

After this, the owner of Chicago protested and outed him as a black player, and Baltimore has “no choice” but to take him off the roster and he would never play in the major leagues officially. Charlie would later play a great career in the Negro leagues and eventually die as a janitor in Cincinnati after a tire exploded and killed him.

Now why do I being this up?

Because, he was living under the impression that, if he pretended, if he lived a lie, then people would accept him enough to do what he felt he was destined to do.

Are you like that?

Can you not be totally venerable with people?

Do you feel like at church, at work, at home, on dates or with friends, if you are the real you then you will never be accepted?

Never be promoted?

Never be…

Loved?

Sometimes we just have to look ourselves in the mirror…

examine our scars…

our mistakes…

our disorders…

our addictions…

our lies….

and say to ourselves….

I forgive you. God forgives you. He made you in his image and he is here with his people, waiting to help and love you. Today is a new day and…

It is time to heal and be real.

Your Worst Fear (Warning, You Won’t Finish This)

I was thinking about fear today.

What holds me back?

Expectations?

Doubt?

Not knowing?

Then I saw a video of something I would fear more than anything, it is a fear of a job that one guy has to do.

I dare you to watch the whole clip…

What We Get To Do

I had two phone calls this morning. Both were with the two men that have influenced me that most in my journey toward planting Catalyst Church this past year.

I got to tell them cool stuff that is going on right now.

I got to tell them…

Attendance for Sunday gatherings is growing rapidly…

Giving is almost doubling…

We are doing crazy cool service in our city during the week that I don’t even have to facilitate…

We are reaching people that we are shocked that we get to reach….

 

I share all of this and the feedback is great. Lots of praising God and lots of kind words of coaching on how to improve all of these aspects.

Then it hit me….

 

This is what we get to do.

Daily, I get to wake up, kiss my wife and kids and get to work to go out and find partners in changing the world.

I get to share the message of the one who created every person reading this for the rest of my life, and when I do it I am answering the question to my daughters as to what “daddy does”.

Every person that calls themselves a part of the Kingdom of God, this is what you get to do.

This is what it looks like:

God exists….

God Creates….

God loves man….

God sacrifices for man…

All the while, throughout history, God instructs, empowers and entrusts us to tell people all about it and to live out the faith that he has given us.

 

Wake up.

Make this day count.

This is what we get to do.

My favorite title

I have been called jerk.

I have been called hypocrite.

I have been called boyfriend.

I have been called liar.

I have been called a {Insert Racist Name} Lover.

I have been called lost.

I have been called gay.

I have been called champion.

I have been called a dancer.

I have been called a singer.

I have been called friend.

I have been called selfish.

I have been called a drunk.

I have been called a whore.

I have been called lazy.

I have been called workaholic.

I have been called full-of-it.

I have been called weak.

I have been called strong.

I have been called hott.

I have been called ugly.

I have been called fat.

I have been called an idealist.

I have been called a pessimist.

I have been called unloved.

I have been called minister.

I have been called reverend.

I have been called preacher.

I have been called pastor.

I have been called Hafe.

I have been called Hafer.

I have been called Christian.

I have been called disciple.

I have been called Matt.

I have been called husband.

 

But….

 

The thing that gets me every single time…

 

The thing that makes me beam every time I hear it…

 

The thing that remains constant and is not only a testimony to what I have done…

 

what my wife has done….

 

or what God has done….

 

The thing that makes me realize that it will be okay is when I get called…

 

 

Daddy.

 

 

 

Some Thoughts on American Worship Services

I love the church.

I really do.

I still believe that the church is where the world should look to to solve all of it’s problems, and at the same token I believe that the church should own it and be the answer to those problems in a loving, forgiving and servant filled way.

In America, the church seems to exist in people’s minds in pretty small windows.

People, without saying it out loud, seem to think that God exists in about 4 places.

The church building and most meeting held in it.

Funerals.

Hospitals.

Sporting Events.

Those are about the only places God seems to really exists in people’s minds when it comes down to it, apart from from those we can pretty much do what we want and he will most likely pop in when we put our kids to bed or when I just got done sinning, but for the most part God works long hours elsewhere so we can just pick him up right where we left him later on in the week.

The most prevalent place that God seems to exists is the Worship Service.

When you enter a “church” you are now in “God’s House”. It is his. His name may not be on the mail box and he may not get sent the bills, but it is his house so you have to look and act like he is here (unlike the other 6 days and 22 hours of the week).

So if worship services are such a big deal in our church culture, the question must be brought up, why do we seem to try so little?

You have churches that have these things called ‘special music” where someone who seemingly has never sung a note in the context of a voice lesson or legitimate choral group, turning on a karaoke machine (it always turns to the wrong track by the sound guy, who most likely wasn’t told the track number to begin with, to which she tells him to find it while the crowds waits) and close her eyes and sing whatever this track guides her to sing. Then as she/he sings, it finishes, people clap, the preacher acts like it was pretty good, and we move along.

You have skits. Skits that have really never been rehearsed, aren’t even in the ballpark of well produced or well acted and then at the end of the two minutes everyone stops drinking and driving and gets saved. And then, people applaud for effort.

We have song leaders that pick from a random book on Saturday Night or early Sunday morning with litte thought as to how this might inspire the majesty that is Yahweh.

You have people cover secular tunes that they hear on the radio. It is played so chaotically that you don’t realize it is the new Maroon 5 song until the second verse and at the end everyone feels like we are cool now because we wear jeans and Ryan Seacrest would recognize our set list.

Every time I see this I try to be respectful.

I think to myself that the person doing this really loves Jesus. They are gifted in many ways, but no one has had the courage to tell them that they might not be the part of the BODY that sings, acts or plays instruments. I know that many are on a mission to relate to people and teach the gospel and they feel like if they love it, they should do it.

I once asked a Worship Director and asked him why he allowed that and what he said shook me, he said:

It’s good enough for church.

Good enough for church?

But is that the way?

While reading Exodus this week someone struck me. I got to the part where God instructs on how to build the Tabernacle. He is so specific. He tells them the exact dimensions, the exact tools to use, the exact materials to use. At one point in Exodus 25:5 God tells Moses to build part of it from the skins of Manatees.

Manatees?

So Moses must have been like “um, do you know how hard it is to catch a Manatee? I mean good harpoons won’t be invented for 4,000 years.”

But, he has to.

God also over and over tells him to hire embroiders to do the work on the linens and  tells him to use Gold, Bronze and Silver.

God asks him to use the best stuff there is and use the best people there is.

Why?

Because this place is where people would grow to believe God exists.

The whole world was his but this is where you could ceremonially experience him.

Some of it was made so precise and only a few people would ever see it, most of the time God and one guy, but that doesn’t matter to God. To God is he has a house, it is the nicest on the block because he deserves to be honored with the best.

If people come to ceremonially experience God, we pray over what we do, we make it intentional and we use the collective gifts that God gave our body is the right way.

That is why I love Josh Walker. He is Catalyst’s Creative Arts Director and one of my best friends in the whole world. Every time we discuss a worship service you can see him strategically think of whom to use, how to use them and what elements we can use to bring people closer to God and lift him up the way he deserves it.

Some think that churches like Catalyst and Chestnut Ridge in Morgantown work too hard on that hour, but we don’t, we do it because God sees what we do when we gather. He is breathtaking and beautiful and everything we do should reflect that, whether it is traditional, contemporary or not labeled, just reflective of who God is and who we are in relationship to him.

We love Jesus and we hope that what we do makes it obvious to the world.

Do you?

Why Did You Become A Christian?

I was 18. A couple guys I knew from school invited me to go to a concert thing with them. They told me there would be a bunch of rocking bands and it would be in the RCA Dome in Indianapolis where the Colts play. I thought that was cool. They then told me there would be a few speakers on two of them I would know. One woul be Saint Louis Rams Quarterback Kurt Warner, the other was the Pro Wrestler Sting.

I was in. I had just spent a typical sinful and embarassing teenage weekend with my “cool” friends and thought that a weekend away to hang out with some buddies and hear music and listen to a couple heros speak would be pretty nice. So I told me girlfriend I was going to go and she said “why would you do that? you know it’s a “Christian” thing, right? So I said, “well I see it like this, I gave the Devil every weekend of my life so far, let God have one”.

So I go. I was shocked by a couple things.

One thing I was shocked by was how many “christian” girl dressed like prostitutes. I called a friend of mine while I was there and told him that he needs to get up here because these girls look easier than the girls we party with.

I was also shocked by how many adults came with kids and bought such cheap crap like a t-shirt that was made to look like Mountain Dew, but instead said something about God dying for my sins.

So I sit through the bands. They were really good and I never saw people explain Jesus in a non-religious way, so for me, I was pretty excited.

Kurt Warner was cool but a dreadful speaker.

Sting was awesome, but he was “wrestling” against guys in black costumes that had sins written on them, which I was beyond confused by.

Then it happened….

The last session a guy named Ron Luce  came out to speak.

He told the crowd of probably 20,000+ that he wasn’t going to talk to the Christians in this session. He was going to talk to the kids who came with their Christian friends….

He said that we were the ones who the whole town thought was “good” kids, but we were nothing short of popularaity whores. We would drink, have sex, tease people, bully and do whatever it took to be “liked”…

He said that my life was a joke and I am fooling no one…

but…

There is someone who sees right through it and is dangerously in love with me, even enough to take that stupidity and die for it so that I could have a second chance…

Here I was. One of the most popular kids in school, on a trip with church kids and I was in a metal folding chair…

Sobbing.

I knew Jesus was real. I thought this guy was sitting next to me talking to me and I knew that I had to be forgiven and live for this Savior that has known me all along.

This was when I decided to become a Christian.

Let me ask you, do you remember when you became a Christian?

More importantly, do you remember WHY you became a Christian?