Golden State Warriors and the Church

My first Warriors game was in 1999. We played the Sonics. I remember I was excited after we won that game because the Sonics were actually ranked #1 on Kobe Bryant's NBA Courtside on n64. Back in those days, John Starks was the Stephen Jackson and I remember him hoisting up three threes in a row. He missed the first two but made the last one and he threw his arms up in the air to pump up the crowd...
Back then, Bimbo Coles ran the point, Antawn Jamison was a rookie, and Donyell Marshall was our best player. There was no Roaracle, no "We Believe." If you were a Warriors fan in the 90s, that says something about you. It says that you know how to persevere, how to tolerate pain, and it means that you're probably a little irrational. But to be a Warriors fan in the 90s meant something.
And then "We Believe" happened... I'm not hating on our playoff run, but it changed things. All of the sudden, everyone at school was wearing JRich and Baron jerseys, nerds started talking about the games, and even girls were getting on the hype... something wasn't right. It simply wasn't fair. Just because you're wearing a throwback Warriors jersey and your MySpace says that Monta's your "boo" doesn't mean that you're a legit fan!! You never suffered through the years of Jason Caffey and Chris Mills!! You never fell in love with Adonal Foyle!! And you don't know the pain of watching Vince get ROY when Antawn gets an embarrassing All-Rookie 2nd team alongside Michael Olowakandi...
Do you consider yourself a Warriors fan? Examine yourself. Do you remember when the Warriors used to play on Channel 36 (6 for you kids who had cable)? Do you remember Vonteego? Mookie? Muggsy? Terry Cummings? Jimmy Jackson? Do you remember the hope of Musselman? The pain of Mike Montgomery? ... That's what I thought.

The Church is the same way, you know? There was a time when being a Christian meant something. When, if you claimed that title, people looked at you funny. It meant that you were a radical, a troublemaker, and that you were probably a little irrational. The early church actually had integrity. When everyone deserted the city because of plague, Christians were the ones to stay behind and take care of and even become the sick. Christians were those guys who sold their possessions and shared their wealth. Christians were the ones going to jail for standing against the government... back in the day, being a Christian said a lot about a person.
And then Constantine happened... He made Christianity into the national religion and soon enough, everyone and their moms was on that Christianity hype. It lost its original meaning; these newcomers had no idea what it meant to follow Jesus. They kinda just jumped on late and enjoyed the ride. They didn't know what it was like to suffer at the hands of emperors, to get thrown into jail, to join the poor, or to be martyred for their faith. They just said, "we believe."
And I think the church is still trying to recover. I have a hard time hearing facts like, one third of the world is Christian. I wanna believe it, but I just don't know. I don't even know about myself sometimes. I think if Jesus or Paul had a church today, it would be a lot smaller than we would like to think. But these days, church is all about good music, flat panel tvs on the sides that don't add anything to the service, and pastors that serve as part-time comedians. It's all about getting bigger and better--more people, bigger venue, more lights, more talent... pretty soon God gets pushed out of his own service because we're so concerned with making a production.
Do you consider yourself a Christian? Examine yourself.

We Believe!

So in another tab I have my email open. I'm writing an email to my pastor. So far, I've typed out her (yee that's right, we have a female pastor. Whuh?) email address and the words, "Hey Chris" (yee that's right, she has a male name. Whuh?... jk it's really Christine, but we tight like that) and then I got writer's block. Or maybe it's my chronic pansynitis kicking in again.
See, I'm trying to arrange a meeting with her for this upcoming Sunday, maybe just to talk about some stuff about where the church is going and hopefully share some of my thoughts about the church. But every time I think about it, it's just like, wtheck am I really gonna say?? I mean, she's my pastor for goodness sake. "Oh hey Chris, I was just thinking the other day, 'Wow, our church is pretty wack! Don't you agree?'" I might as well slap her in the face and knock over all the papers on her desk.
And of course, I won't just leave it at that... "Oh our church sucks" because it really doesn't. But I just wanna induce some constructive discussion nahhmean? yafimme? Still though, I find it quite the arduous task to write her an email saying, "Oh I just have some concerns about the church." Like... who am I? Some college sophomore scrub jabroni who thinks he can make changes in this 120 year old church.
Anyways, hopefully by blogging about it, I'll have to finish the email, since I already wrote about it and it would be stupid to announce it to the whole world (or the 4 people who read this) and never do it. That would indeed be buffoonery.

Anyways, onto more pressing topics. That stupid email topic took up four short paragraphs. Emburressin... Stay with me though!
So I've ventured down the river from my Irresistible Revolution days and I am now swimming amidst the verbal waters of a literary genius by the name of Brother Yun. (dang that sentence was deep and metaphorical) And don't hate on Brother Yun because he has a foolish name. That's messed up. Actually, to correct myself, he is not a literary genuis. He's just your average Asian.His book that I'm trying to read right now is called The Heavenly Man. Again, I know it sounds stupid, but it's really interesting. A supposedly true story about the underground church in China during Mao's communist regime. The book. is. loaded. with. miracles! Of him having visions, having those visions fulfilled, him escaping the police, him scaling walls, running miles within minutes, the list goes on. And I'm only past the first 80 pages of this 350+pg book. Ridiculoso. Anyways, it got Nathan thinking, where are today's miracles?
I mentioned in an earlier post that Shane Claiborne's argument is that we really shelter ourselves from seeing any miracles because we rarely need them. Food, medicine, housing... these are all things we have easy access to without transcendental assistance. And plus, Jesus reprimands the people who ask for a miracle... But dang dude. I really wanna see a one. I really wanna have a vision from God.
So far in my life, I have only witnessed one miracle.And that was freakin glorious. But I want to see another one. This time, something more substantial maybe... Of course, I've had answered prayers. Big prayers, too, that seemed very very unlikely. And I will be one of those people who attest to the little miracles of everyday life. But you know what I mean though. I wanna see a big one. That I know was from God. Like if one day I woke up and was 5'11. Miracle. That would be awesome. Add that to the prayer request list.
Sometimes I just feel like we worship a shadow of the God we really profess to follow. We take so few risks that we can never really witness the power we claim him to possess and we can never truly know how wonderful and faithful our God is until we actually need to trust him.
I don't wanna assume anything about God, that he can work a miracle in this or that part of my life, but I do wanna pray big prayers and take risks for this God that I've heard so much about for the past five or so years. I wanna see and be a part of something amazing that God is doing. I wanna see people healed. I wanna see the Good News be good again. I wanna see nonbelievers seeing how crazy things are with those Jesus freaks... Is it ok for me to want these things? Maybe I'm just lacking faith. Maybe, like those people in the Gospels, I'm just begging for a miracle. Maybe Jesus is getting frustrated with me. Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe. Maybe I just wanna know who this real God is.
We worship a God that is capable of these things. I know he is. He's gotta be. I wanna know this God for who he is and not for who the church makes him out to be.
So what do you think? Do miracles still happen? Are there conditions where they happen more often?

modern day miracle?
http://www.shauninthecity.com/blog/2008/09/i-experienced-a.html