X-TREME!!

(I am sure that this is true in most professions) On any given week, at work I will receive between 5 and 20 pieces of mail that I never look at. This is approximately 60% of the total pieces of mail that I receive in a week. Inevitably, there are 2 or 3 a WEEK that have something (either in title or content) that mention how X-TREME the event will be.

This conference will be the most X-TREME conference EVER!!

In the interest of full-disclosure, I have never been an any conference with X-TREME in the title. So my opinion of X-TREME conferences is not one of full breadth.

It strikes me that in a generation struggling for identity, call, purpose, meaning, and sense of values, that the church is pushing them to the X-TREME. (for the record, I think every generation stuggles with these things at some point, this is not unique to THIS generation)..

I can think of a dozen parents over the last 7 years who have expressed their "parenting style" to reflect balance, diversity, logic, and even discipline. (in all the right ways parents use discipline).
We hear (maybe it is just the books and magazines I have read) about this generation (mine) in their 20s and 30's flocking to Taize f0r authentic worship, meeting outside of church walls in house churches for authentic community, joining "emerging churches" that are interested in a kind of Christianity that is loving and relevant. Nothing sounds X-TREME about that to me.

Radical, cool, meaningful, interesting, spiritual, different, revolutionary....but not X-TREME

X-TREME TAIZE!! I can see the brochure now!

While they are doing some good things, and I have no doubt that disciples are being made at these events, at the core, I believe X-TREME events are trying to accomplish 2 things - marketing to a X-games culture and making some money.

Living as a model of Jesus Christ takes an extreme passion. An extreme call. An extreme act of faith. Jesus was a radical and lived an extreme life. Not an X-TREME life. Following the One is extreme, not X-TREME.

I am interested in helping God make disciples that will last lifetimes, not through 2012 when they graduate from high school and X-TREME FAITH isn't relevant anymore.

X-TREME is great for "relating to the culture", something I am all for. And I am all for extreme faith, and living a crazy passionate life...just as Jesus did.

X-TREME seems very trivial and a "flash-in-the-pan" kind of faith.

Plus it is very bad grammar....

winning

competition...

I love it...

I have a hard time in life NOT competing. Pick-up games of basketball turn into Game 7 when no one is looking, kick-ball is not for leisure...it is for victory, and flag football...don;t even get me started!

Don't get me wrong, I know when to take it easy and when to distribute the ball evenly in a friendly game involving youth...

"Its for the kids" a friend of mine used to say..especially when one of the adults was playing a little to aggressive...

There are however, 2 competitions that I find most invigorating

1) Competing against people who do not know they are involved in the game
and
2) Competing against people I do not know

Lets break it down:
Competition 1) I think this is why I like MTV's Boiling points so much when it was on. It is fun to see people get hyped up, and then realize it was a game. oops...

I like being the first to go when the light turns green (while always looking both ways mom). I like kicking a rock further than people who don't know we are playing. I like following behind people and doing what they were not able to do, or doing it better/faster.

I would imagine a psychologist would have a good time breaking that one down, I think it just about being competitive.

Competition 2) Currently I am involved in a online promotion involving a large national food chain. (I would tell you who, but I want a better chance of winning...sorry). Each day I log-on and enter. (You will not be laughing when I win my cool million!) I can enter once per day, and every day as I hit that final "submit" button, I think about how one of us will defeat the others, and we will never know who we defeated. Sad really...

but not as sad as throwing a fit on the side of a mountain when you fall.....

EPIC