So far we've asked five questions that I think are dangerous.  Dangerous because they threaten to upset our worlds, turn them upside down and releasing the power God wants to leverage in our lives.

Here's a recap of the four questions so far:

How would fully realizing that I am 100% fully, completely forgiven affect how I react to people who have hurt me?

Are you doing anything in your life that absolutely requires God's help to accomplish it?  If not, you're probably not doing anything significant.

What if today you pushed past your deepest fear with the confidence that God was with you?

What if you viewed all you had (your time, energy and
resources) as things entrusted to you by God for which you had to give
an account?

So how about you?  What question churning in your mind has the power to turn our individual or collective worlds upside down?  Post them as a comment and we'll see what happens.

When we started this little series a week or so ago, a friend emailed this question in:

To me, that's a bombshell (good bombshell) question. 

What would be different?  What grudge would you have left to hold?  What relational funk would there be left in any relationships?  Is that actually what heaven will be like?  If Jesus died for our sins, doesn't that mean we can experience that now?

I have had moments – just moments – in my life where I think I saw the power of that thought.  A glimpse.  My heart melts.  Then the moment is gone.

What if that was true in our lives today?

What do you think?

P.S.  Tomorrow, we turn it over to you to ask your dangerous questions.  Can't wait to see what you're asking.

Okay church leaders, we're not done the Dangerous Questions series (a landmine question coming next), but here comes a quick break to share this.

I'm a bit of a passionate/crazy Simple Church advocate.  What's the philosophy of simple church?  Rather than offering a hundred programs in ministry, we offer very little in terms of ministry options at Connexus, believing that less is more. That philosophy is even reflected in our slogan… Real Life…Simplified.

So for adults, all we do is Sunday morning and community groups.  That's it.  We believe so strongly that community groups currently offer the best impact for life change that we don't want to muddy the waters.  We just picked our best option and we're running with it.  That's it.

I always challenge church leaders with this: if you can't explain your ministry strategy on a dinner napkin, it's too complicated.  If you can't say it in a sentence, you probably don't understand it. 

A simple ministry model is to church what Apple is to computing, what Toyota and Honda are to the automotive world.  Rather than offer dozens or hundreds of mediocre choices, they offer very few choices but what they do offer is high quality.  And as this article points out, it's working.  At least for Apple.  And one might argue for Honda and Toyota.

I know this is still controversial, but several years into a simple church model, I'm so glad we made the change.  It might not just be a good church model/business model, it might also be a great life model.  Pick a few things, and do them well. 

Just sayin'….

Here's a question that I hope disturbs your day and my day enough to force us to answer it. I think I heard a version of this question a few years ago (can't
remember who, just don't want to steal credit…), and I wished the
question stuck in my head every day.

Are you doing anything in your life that absolutely requires God's help to accomplish it?  If not, you're probably not doing anything significant.

As much as we say we want to trust God, most of us would rather have our lives unfold so neatly that God isn't required.  We'd rather have reward without risk and success without sacrifice.  We'd rather get a guarantee that it's all going to work out than have to engage in activity so risky that it actually requires trust every day.

So most of us settle. Life with limits.  A little house in the suburbs.  Better furniture.  A church that we could build on our own strength.  Just big enough, but nothing daring.  That's a good life.  Yeah, but it's boring. And it doesn't require God.

But

• if you're hanging onto a marriage you don't know how to fix…that absolutely requires God's help to heal it…you're doing something significant. 
• If you are are leading a mission so different from what others are doing that no one thinks it will work but you're convinced it will lead people to Christ…you might be onto something significant. 
• If you're living at a level of sacrifice that actually forces you to pray to God because you're not sure you've got enough left over for yourself, you're doing something real.
• If your day starts uphill against the wind every day because you're attempting to obey God, then you're doing something significant.

And you might, actually, be trusting God.

So we're asking dangerous questions.  The kind of questions that, if taken seriously, could throw a hand grenade into the complacency in your life and mine.

Today's question:

What if today you pushed past your deepest fear with the confidence that God was with you?

I'm not talking cliff-diving here (especially onto a frozen lake). I'm talking more about the kind of fears that prevent you and me from being who God designed us to be.  The kind of fear that keeps hope from happening, that makes us lose heart.  That makes us want to give up.  That keeps us from realizing potential because, well, we'd just never do that.  Fear is such an enemy.  Here's what happens when fear gets you and me:

• We shrink back from certain relationships.
• We lose the confidence that God can use us.
• Opportunities never get seized.
• Our world becomes smaller and smaller.
• Despair gets access to the place where hope used to live.
• Risks never get embraced, and rewards rarely surface.
• God becomes a good idea, not a personal companion.

What fear did you wake up with today?  Some of you can name it.  Some of us, on the other hand, have been living with fear so long we don't even recognize the intruder any more.

What fear will you hand to God today?  Read this.  Then talk to God about your fear.  And dump it, fully confident that today, God will give you the strength to push past it.

We're starting a short blog series today I'm calling "Dangerous Questions."  The questions are only dangerous because if we really pay attention to them, they could change us deeply.

The purpose?  Most of us will live our lives with assumptions or beliefs that don't serve God or even us particularly well.  Assumptions that place limits on how God can use us.  So in this series we'll simply ask questions that challenge those beliefs and assumptions. 

Today's question:  What if you viewed all you had (your time, energy and resources) as things entrusted to you by God for which you had to give an account?

Last night, for example, I watched tv for 2.5 hours.  Great use of time?  Not really.  Nothing wrong with tv, but 2.5 hours?  Really…. Well what if I believed that the time entrusted to me belonged to God, not me?  How would I use it differently?  How would I have used it to add value to the lives around me?  How would my day have been different?

Apply that to what's sitting in my bank account.  What claim does God have on the money not only that I give back to the Kingdom, but to the money I use for monthly cash flow?  How is my leadership a stewardship?  How is my time best used if it really doesn't belong to me?

The easiest way to get your head into this space is to imagine you entrusting an investment adviser with $1000 for you to invest (remember we talked about this a few times at Connexus?).  Imagine you come back six months later and

• The adviser has no idea what happened to the money or where it went.
• The adviser says you lost 'approximately' 10% but isn't sure exactly how much and is not interested in answering your questions.
• The adviser used your money to take a trip to Cuba.

We understand this scenario because the assumption is that the money belongs to us, not to the adviser.  The problem is that the adviser acted like the money was his when it wasn't.

If our lives belong to God, why do we resent God's incursion into 'our' lives to give an account for 'our' time, 'our' money and 'our' energy because we assume it's 'ours'.

What if it's not?  What if it's His?  How would your day be different?

So it's Sunday, and due to a 5:50 a.m. phone call from a friend whose car broke down and needed a ride to Connexus this morning, I haven't cracked YouVersion yet today.  But I look forward to reading it tonight.

If we've tracked together at all, you know that daily bible reading is a core discipline for me.  The more I am in God's Word, the more alive I become. 

Just have to reiterate how refreshing YouVersion has been for me this year.  I don't get any commissions or kickbacks or even have any interest in YouVersion, but let me try to tell you why I like it:

• As a guy who has read a paper Bible for all my life and surfed online Bibles for research purposes for a few years now, reading my daily passages on the YouVersion iPhone app has been fantastic (it works on iPod touches too).  Somehow seeing the text on a screen makes it jump and pop in fresh ways.  You can read it off a regular browser too – not just off your phone.

• It's classic web 2.0 stuff.  You can keep an on line journal, see what others have to say about a text, add video to help comment on a passage, switch translations and more, plus…

• You can read in community.  I love reading in community.  To do this even more personally, you can "follow" people on YouVersion and they can follow you, and and RSS feed gives you easy access to their comments.  My friend Pat Dryburgh sampled this on his blog recently.  Enjoy.

• If you have trouble sticking to a reading plan, not only does tell you what to read every day, but the people who follow you and encourage you to stick with it.

If you want to join our journey, just follow me (search my username: cnieuwhof) and I'll follow you.  We'll be able to track together.  YouVersion is showing up a lot on Twitter these days…yet another layer to the community (you can follow me and many others who are daily Bible readers on Twitter too).

So…all of this is to encourage you to get into God's earth shaking, mind altering Word in 09 if you're not already into it.

What do you like about your personal bible reading…however you might do it?

So yesterday, my frustration peaked again with companies that act like they really don't want your business.

I have spent a disproportionate amount of time trying to get home internet in the last three weeks.  Without boring you with the details, here are some of my frustrations:

• The modem for my original ISP died December 14th.  It was 10 days out
  of warranty.  They would not honour the warranty and were going to
  charge me for a service call and a new modem.  I purused other options.
• One company billed me $376 for a new install on home internet, and then did not call me for 10 days.  I called them several times and finally canceled when they were still unable to do an install or explain what happened.  I got a full refund, but no internet.
• Another company said they had two potential solutions.  One was not in stock anywhere in Central Ontario and no store knew why.  The company wasn't shipping new units, leaving the local dealers at a loss to figure out what happened.
• I bought portable internet in another form from that company.  It wouldn't install on my computer (and the signal strength wasn't that great.)  They gave me a full refund.  But then their parent company billed me for the first month anyway.  They refunded it.  Spent over five hours in line or on hold in the process though.
• I went back to my original company for new technology they offer.  It's been nine days.  They promised an install in 3-5 days.  No one has called.  I have called them twice.  They sent the order to the wrong store.  No apologies.
• Total time invested in getting home internet – probably 10-12 hours in the last three weeks.  Yikes.
• I still have no home internet.  Maybe today.  Maybe tomorrow.

I'd really love to take over the customer service industry.  I'd love to bring back a customer centered angle.  At Starbucks recently they forgot to put vanilla in my drink.  I brought it back (only because I'm not man enough to drink it black).  They offered to make me a new one (not necessary, I said, so they just put vanilla in my drink) and then they gave me a coupon for a free drink next time.  Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about… They exceeded my expectations.

Sometimes I think that many people would rather defend the institution than serve the customer.  And here's what worries me…do we do that in the church?  I worry that the answer is yes. 

When we meet people, are we more interested in how we can serve them or how they can serve us?  When any organization becomes more interested in how people can serve us, we lose our soul. You don't need to know much about Jesus to know that somehow the Gospel takes the side of serving others, not self.

What good practices/bad practices do you see in the church (any church)?  And what can we do to get a service mentality back?

So I'm all for grace, and I need more in my life, but today the Bible rocked my socks once again.  I was reading the Sermon on the Mount, and understood once again why people reacted both positively and negatively toward Jesus' teachings.  I could be wrong about what I'm going to say next, and many of you are going to resist what's coming next.  That's okay.

After teaching us to love our enemies and to not judge people,  Jesus then tells us not to throw our pearls to the pigs, because they'll trample the pearls and turn and attack us. While the meaning of the verse is not 100% certain, it's hard to miss one fact: Jesus is telling us not everyone is worth the investment and that if we invest in the wrong people, our best efforts will backfire.  So stop investing.  Just don't throw them more pearls.

Later in the chapter, Jesus warns us to stay away from people who claim to represent Jesus but don't.  And he says there is an easy test – just look at their actions.  Actions, more than talk, reveal a person's real heart.

Personally, I've met more than a few people who I've invested in deeply who have turned and attacked me or others.  I kept the relationship open in the name of grace. I still got attacked.  Some of that clearly is my junk, but what if its not all my junk? What if not only our lives get unnecessarily complicated by people who should get cut out, what if our churches get messed from the same thing?

Is Jesus saying we need to cut the tie sooner?  Do you think he's saying not everyone is worth the investment?  That at times we just end up wasting our time? 

Are some people just a waste of time?  Are there people you need to cut out of your life now? 
And before you start to dump non-Christian friends, realize that these
texts are mostly talking about people who claim to be Christian. If you're struggling with this, check these passages out. 

I'm still not sure I'm the guy to figure out who to cut out and who to leave in.  That would require prayer and good counsel.  But what if Jesus is actually saying, "cut some people out." 

• How would you start? 
• What would you do?
• Would the Kingdom of God be stronger if it was purer? 
• How would I know whether I am one of the guys who needs to be cut out?

These are big questions….what do you think?

Hope you had a great holiday.  Happy New Year 2009!  I played a lot of Rockband 2, made it to a game of the World Juniors in Ottawa, and got just enough downtime to come back fresh for a new year.

Thought we'd start off the conversation for a new year with some thoughts on life, mission and getting in position to let God leverage our lives and leadership. I don't have a list of specific goals, but here's what I'll be working on in 09.

• I'm refreshing my daily bible reading by switching to YouVersion, an online bible set up last year by the great folks at Lifechurch.tv.  Two days in, I already like it for two reasons:

• I'm reading in community.  The decision to move to YouVersion started December 31st when I twittered about that day's reading from Malachi.  By late that afternoon, six of us decided to read the bible together in a year on line using YouVersion.  If you want to join, just sign up, search for me, and follow me.  Should be fun!
•  Reading on a screen (in this case, my phone) makes me physically read the text differently than off the printed page, which I've read all my life.  It's making words and phrases pop in fresh ways.  Love it!

• I'm reading more intentionally in 09.  Recently, I picked up a dozen or so business/leadership books to sharpen my leadership skills.  Here's a sampling of what's on my list for early 09:

• I'm joining a gym.  Frankly, for two reasons.

• I need to get in shape.  Doing it on my own has lost me ten pounds in ten years.  Not good enough.  Looking at hiring a personal trainer to keep me accountable and get me moving.
• I need to get out of the Christian bubble.  I need new environments in 09 that get me more deeply into the fabric of the wider culture. A gym is one of those places.

I could say much more (I haven't talked about personal growth or even spiritual growth), but that's enough for now.  I'm deeply pumped about 2009 and excited about all that could happen.  God's faithfulness last year was far beyond any deserving, and I'm confident He's going to stretch and grow me and us more than we can imagine this year.

 How about you?  How is your 2009 starting, and what will be different about 09 than 08?