“Rocky” Theology

I’m still on my couch, watching perhaps one of the best movies of all times: Rocky III. Being the preacher that I am, I can’t just watch a movie. I’m constantly seeing different themes in the movie that can be translated into a sermon (or youth lesson) series, topic or illustration.

You know the premise of Rocky III, right? For those who are hazy, here it is quickly:

Rocky Balboa is the champion of the world. He beat Apollo Creed for the world title. He is then challenged by the newcomer Clubber Lang, played by the illustrious Mr. T. After avoiding him for months, the two finally meet in a showdown that ends in tragedy for Rocky. He is beat. Really, he is creamed by Clubber Lang. Defeated, Rocky falls from grace, depressed and angry with himself. But encouragement comes from an unlikely place: Apollo Creed, his old opponent. Creed pushes Rocky to get back on his feet and reclaim his title.

This idea got me thinking about how this relates to Christians. It’s easy to fall into Rocky’s mindset from earlier in the third movie. Rocky underestimates Clubber Lang. He thinks, “I’ve defeated other foes in the past; this guy won’t be any different”. Because of that thinking, he gets pummelled in the ring.

All of us, no matter what stage of our Christian walk we are in (new convert, renewed believer, age-old believer) can fall into this trap. We’ve seen victories in our lives and so we let our guard down.

But Ephesians 6:13 says: Put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground (NIV).

We have to prepare ourselves now for coming battles. Former victories don’t mean we can slack off; it means we need to train harder. The time to prepare for coming adversities is now. If we wait, we’ll end up in the ring with our enemy bashing our faces in.

Like Mick and Creed, we a “Trainer” (Counselor, Helper, etc…) that will be with us every step of the way. In fact, our Trainer is in the ring with us, fighting right alongside of us. And our Trainer is telling us to prepare for the fight; to be ready when the time comes.  Then we will win the fight.

“Now, when we fought, you had that eye of the tiger, man; the edge! And now you gotta get it back, and the way to get it back is to go back to the beginning”- Apollo Creed

Here I Am to Worship?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about worship. A few weeks ago, my senior pastor & I had a discussion surrounding worship through Christmas which led into a discussion on worship in general. It really got me thinking over the next days and weeks. As part of my job, one of my responsibilities is in the area of worship. But what is worship?

We (myself included) oftentimes use worship as interchangable with “music”. We have a worship section, then there’s prayer, and finally preaching. But are we missing the point? What is worship?

Eugene Peterson says it well when he paraphrased Romans 12:1, saying: “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.”

This is worship: taking your everyday life and giving it to God as an offering. So, in essense, everything is worship.I doubt this is original, but I’d go as far as saying that in everything you do, you’re worshipping something.  The only question, then, is: “who or what are you worshipping?”

While music can and should be a part of our worship experience, if that is the extent of our worship, then we are missing the point. Our lives need to be lived in worship. When the music fades and all is stripped away, the worship must continue in our lives, in the day-to-day routines. When we offer up our lives, then we have discovered the heart of worship.

Additional thought Thursday Morning: It’s easy to confuse worship with the emotional response to music Sunday mornings (or evening or Saturday nights or at a youth rally, etc). Worship isn’t simply the emotional response, but it is the lifestyle. I don’t get an euphoric emotional response to cleaning up after youth, but if given as an offering to God, it can…no should be worship. Just an extra thought…

A Circus of Political Proportions

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or are an American), you’ve heard by now that the Liberals, NDP, Bloc, and the (group who bunch of hippies who call themselves a political party) Greens are forming a coalition to try to topple the recently elected government in an attempt to form a “coalition government”.

I want to try to get this straight: so, we went to the polls 6 weeks ago to do what? I realize Harper doesn’t have a majority government, but he certainly received the strongest support (basically the only major party to receive an increase in voter support- gaining 19 seats; contrast that with the Liberals losing 26- that’s a 25% fallback!!!!). We, the Canadian people have made our decision. We support a Convservative government with a strengthened mandate. They are only 11 seats away from holding a majority government, for crying out loud!

But, the Liberals under leader (didn’t he resign his position…now I’m confused) Stephane Dion has made a pact with the Bloc (the devil?), the NDP (Communists?), and the Greens (barely a party?) to make a power grab. I’m sorry, if you ever wanted to really tick off Canadians, this is it. Maybe Mr. Dion should take an opinion poll and see how incensed citizens seem to be with this whole debacle. Are we not a democratic nation? Did we not just have an election?

We’re not even 2 months removed from the latest electoral process and now we’re being told that the parties we just recently rejected as a governing party are going to band together to overthrow the “big, bad Tories”? The whole thing sounds as ridiculous as if all the teams that were eliminated from the NHL playoffs banded together to try to take the Stanley Cup from the Red Wings. It’s ridiculous. And all of this because the Tories thought the parties should raise their own money instead of getting federal handouts (is that such a bad idea? Barack Obama just ran a whole campaign without federal funding…)… which he later withdrew.

On the other hand, maybe next election the elect a Conservative majority to send a message to the Liberals, Bloc and NDP that the democratic process is there for a reason and we don’t like know-it-alls tampering with it.

Interesting point of fact: economists are predicting an even greater economic disturbance because of this. Wasn’t the whole reason the Liblocknewgreens gave for this coup-de-gras? That the government wasn’t doing enough to stablize the economy? Hmm…