A Blog by Jason Salamun

Not too long ago, I preached on fear and anxiety.

Weeks later, I was full of fear and anxiety.

As the neurologist looked at my MRI, he saw the problem.

“Looks like you’ve got a ruptured disc between your c6 and c7 vertebrae in your neck that’s hitting a nerve.”

He then went on to tell me,

“What we’re going to do is make an incision in your throat, take out the disc, fuse the two vertebrae together, and screw in some metal plates.”

He then began to talk about the risks and the slight potential of being paralyzed from the neck down.

This wasn’t exactly great news, but it was what he said next that caught me off-guard.

He began discussing the greater chance that I could experience the loss of my voice because of the procedure.

It could be permanent, it could be long-term, it could return raspy, or most likely, once the swelling dies down, it could return to normal.

Not what you want to hear when your voice is your livelihood.

Now, I could lie, act all super spiritual, and tell you that I immediately trusted God and left the neurologists’ office without a care in the world.

But the truth is, I walked to my car, closed the door, laid my head on the steering wheel, and wept.

I was afraid.

The idea of losing my voice felt like losing a friend.

It hurt.

I’m sure you, a reasonable reader, can probably determine that the odds of losing my voice is quite small, yet that’s the very thing I chose to focus on.

Worrying has a way of turning a pebble into Pikes Peak.

Not in reality, but in our minds.

And that’s what was happening to me.

Most of my hopes and dreams involve my ability to speak.

So I prayed.

I prayed that God would let me keep my voice.

As I prayed, the thought occurred to me, “What if God doesn’t want me to have a voice?”

Perhaps He doesn’t?

Perhaps He does?

Then a bigger question popped into my mind, or rather, my heart:

“Do you trust me?”

That’s the real question I’ve been wrestling with.

I know the right answer…

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Phil. 4:6)

…and I’m learning to live in light of it.

In a couple of weeks, I’ll go in for the neck fusion surgery.

I’m ready to have this great pain in my neck, shoulders, and back removed.

I’m looking forward to the numbness in my left arm to be gone and to feel my fingers again.

And I’m hoping my voice returns.

Who knows, it might even be smoother and sexier than ever.

But the greater surgery is what’s happening in my heart.

God taking his rightful place.

My hopes resting in my Great Hope.

Not in my voice or anything else.

Just him.

I know He loves me.

I know He’s mighty.

I know He’s in control.

It’s time to live like I do.

One of my favorite musical artists is Leonard Cohen.

He wrote a song titled, “If It Be Your Will” (Listen)

I’ve always loved it, and in this moment of my life, it’s taken on a deeper meaning.

Perhaps it will resonate with you as well.

‘If It Be Your Will” by Leonard Cohen

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before

I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you

From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice

Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light

In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

If it be your will

Amen

“A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God’s truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.” John Calvin

As Paul writes to the churches of Galatia he is livid.

He had invested time with them in preaching the gospel and as a result, new churches were birthed. He left to continue that mission elsewhere when news got back to him that the Galatians were being seduced to believe a false gospel.  Paul is not one to quarrel over secondary matters but this is no secondary matter; this is a matter of first importance; a cause worth fighting for: The centrality of gospel. And it must be defended!

In our day, there are false teachings that have crept into our churches, Christian bookstores, and imaginations and once again, the centrality of the gospel must be defended!

Spotting false teaching is easy. Just follow the glory. False gospels always diminish Christ and elevate someone or something else. It’s Christianity without Christ which is nothing but crap.

What are these false teachings that are seducing us today?

There are three major ones and we will illustrate them as three characters: The Taskmaster, The Game Show Host, and The Mad Chef.

The Taskmaster
His message is moralism.  The idea is to make sinners better behaved.  In following the taskmaster, we not only earn our salvation, but we earn the keeping of it by following rules (or principles as they’re called today).  Any blessings from God is directly in proportion to our production, nothing more, nothing less. “Try harder” is our mantra.

When we do good, we feel really good.  Over time, we climb the ladder of spiritual superiority and work our way up to middle management with a critical eye on the performance of others.  We feel very proud of our accomplishments.

When we do bad, we feel really bad. Over time, we just give up. What’s the use in trying when all we do is fail? The Taskmaster cracks a whip to motivate us on but when you’ve been beaten your whole life, you form scar tissues, and lose all feeling.  Hopelessness and complacency sets in and you often go from believing a false gospel to believing in nothing. It’s the only way you can live with yourself.

This is not the gospel.

The Game Show Host
His message is prosperity driven.  God is a genie in the bottle and if you do these seven things you will have the good life.  God is a pinata and is here to supply you with what you really want: Happy relationships, wealth, position, possessions, good health, you name it, you claim it, it’s yours. After all, it’s all about you.

The Game Show Host, with his fancy suit and pearly whites sparkling through his smile, points you to believe in a better future and it will be yours. In this game, you are like god and the one, true God is a means to your end: to give you the desires of your heart.  After all, it’s right there in the Bible, so it must be true. Believe in God and you will get your gods.

There’s only one problem. The storms of life still come. When they do, we will cling to something to make it through. That which we cling to is what we actually place our trust in. The winds blow, the rain beats down, and in the prosperity gospel we are left holding onto pillars of sand.

This is not the gospel.

The Mad Chef
His message is a religion made your way. A stew of spirituality created with a little bit of Bible (only with verses we like which are out-of-context), our own life experiences, a slice of philosophy, a pinch of pop culture, a dose of our family tradition, a song lyrics to two. Combine that with our fears, anxieties, and personal preferences, a little bit from other religions, add in some love to make it seem reasonable and VOILA!, a spirituality customized just for us.

The beauty of this one is it can never contradict us and never tell us when we’re wrong because all we have to do is change the ingredients to fit our taste.

Then again, we’ve all been wrong about many things before. In fact, most of us can’t even figure out how to change the oil in our car yet we’ve somehow unlocked the meaning of life? No man has fully understood a woman yet somehow we fully understand the Divine? Something seems amiss.

The Mad Chef lets us create whatever self-help stew of spirituality we want yet all it leaves us with are stomach aches. We keep tweaking with the ingredients but end up with the same result. Our lives still have problems, our soul is still restless, and we’re still left holding a bottle of Pepto blaming God.

This is not the gospel.

So what is the gospel?

That’s where you come in.

I would love to hear what you believe the gospel is.

A couple of years ago, my daughter asked to go for a walk.  We went outside, I reached down my hand to her, and she reached up her hand to mine.  As I glanced down I was struck by this image.  I thought, “What a picture of God and us!”

I pondered this image more and began to see how it was also a beautiful illustration of prayer.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 6 to pray to Our Father.  His hand is always there reaching down to us and all we need to do is reach our hand up to him…and walk.

I love what Dallas Willard said in his great book, The Divine Conspiracy. “I believe the most adequate description of prayer is simply, Talking to God about what we are doing together. That immediately focuses the activity where are but at the same time drives the egotism out of it. Requests will naturally be made in the sharing with God my concerns about what he too is concerned about in my life. And of course he is concerned about my concerns and, in particular, that my concerns should coincide with his. This is our walk together. Out of it I pray.”

The scriptures say, “pray continuously.”  In the rhythm of our life, as we go, all the time. Taking hold of our Father’s strong, yet loving hand, and walking, talking, asking, confessing, venting, and listening.  A divine conversation so to speak.

Let me encourage you to take hold of your Father’s waiting hand and walk (pray).

It’s the most supernatural act we can partake in.

For more on prayer, you can listen to a recent message I gave at Project Church.

On Sunday, October 18 at 10am, Project Church will hold our first service at our new venue… The historic Elks Theatre.

For those outside the Black Hills, The Elks is a vintage theater located in the heart of Rapid City and boasts the largest movie screen in South Dakota.  The main theater seats upwards of 600 people and it’s a cultural landmark for our community.

This move is a huge step of faith for our baby church!

The story of Project Church began in my living room as some friends and I began to dream of a church that was driven by the gospel on a mission to do what Jesus said: Go and make disciples who love God and people.

About a year ago, we decided to gather in public at Alternative Fuel Coffee House where a revolving door of fifty people (give or take) gathered to explore and follow Jesus.  Since then, we’ve seen God begin to build his church as strangers became friends and friends became family.  The coffee house has been a wonderful spot for us and we’re really going to miss the relational aspect of the space.   We were comfortable and had no intentions of moving until we absolutely had to.

Then a phone call from a friend (an assistant manager at the Elks) disrupted our comfort when she asked, “Would Project Church be interested in renting the Elks Theatre?”

This began a huge soul-searching, mission-clarifying journey for me and my crew at Project Church.  We asked each other questions like:

• “In light of our mission, what’s the wise thing, and most loving thing, to do?”
• “What about the people who just drop into our gathering at the coffee house? Will we lose that?
• “How can we afford to get all the resources to make this happen?”
• “Will people think church in a movie theater is strange?
• “How do you foster a relational vibe in a theater?”
• “Is it too churchy being we sit in rows rather than tables?”
• “What about the coffee?!!!”

This decision wasn’t merely about where we would meet.
It was really about who we are.

There are so many categories for churches these days.  Attractional, Missional, Organic, House/Simple, Traditional, Seeker-Sensitive, and so on.  The thing about our church is this: we don’t fit neatly in a given category.

We wondered what a theater communicates. I’m cautious of us being a big show and luring people in with Christian entertainment and teaching 7 Ways to a Shiny, Happy Life.  Fluffy churches like this reduce the church down to something much less than she really is.   She becomes a showgirl rather than a bride.  And I don’t want Project Church to be a showgirl church. I want us to a biblical one.

That said, we should be compelling. Like a cup of cold water in a parched world.  We should express our creativity, after all, God’s a creative God.  We should desire for as many as possible to know, love, and follow Jesus.  That’s our mandate!  We both invite people to come into our story (attractional) AND we bring our story to the people (missional). I guess you could say we’re missiottractional.

We meet in homes during the week (which is our purest expression of church) where we eat, celebrate the Lord’s Supper, share, learn, pray, and serve.  These look a lot like organic house church gatherings AND we meet on Sunday mornings where we connect, worship, and teach the scriptures. This looks a lot like what an outsider might expect a church would be.

In this decision-making process, we began to see our unique fingerprint as a church.  We don’t have to fit in a category, we can be who God has called us to be.  After much prayer, discussion, and outside input, we decided to go for it.   This decision led us to make these defining statements:

We’re relational and believe the church as expressed in the scriptures as a community of believers who share life together.  We will meet during the week to eat, celebrate, learn, pray, help, discuss, and serve.  We call these missional communities to remind us that it isn’t just about us, but about God’s mission in this world.  These groups are organic in nature and our hope is that they reproduce other missional communities.

We’re missional and we will be intentional about entering the stories of others.  Both as a church and as disciples.  From Beer & Bible to ThisMustChange.org to Rock-Paper-Scissors tournaments for local causes to preaching the gospel. We want to bring good news and be good news to our city and this world.

We’re attractional and invite people into our story.  We will embrace and express our creativity in worship to our Creator. We will gather in public on Sunday mornings for a worship service and this will be an entry point into our community. We will call it The Jesus Sessions (because that’s how we roll).  In addition, we use social media, the web, and technology more intentionally as we continue to share our story which is wrapped up in God’s Epic story.

We’re biblical and believe the scriptures should guide our church and lives in all things.  Our plans may change (such as venues) but our mission remains the same: to go and make disciples who love God and people.  We believe it’s the power of the gospel that changes people’s lives and its also the truth of the gospel that informs our lives.  At Project Church, we’re all about Jesus.  We simply want to tether ourselves to him and go as far as he leads.

It’s funny how one decision will lead you to hammer down who you are.  This is the lesson we’re learning as we make our move to the Elks Theatre.   We are excited about the next chapter of our church.  We’re still in diapers but we’re growing.

If you think of it, please pray for us.  We could use it. Pray that we would be faithful to our calling.  That we will be effective in making disciples who love God and people.  That we will be a drop of heaven here on earth.

Also, if you’d like to help us out tangibly, we’d greatly appreciate it.  We’d love for you to be a part of this story. You can give online or if you wish to give a specific item (equipment, resources, etc.), feel free to contact me.

Thanks for reading this blog and for your support!

We’re just getting started.

Christopher Columbus is often credited with discovering North America.  The only problem was, it was already inhabited with Native Americans who had made the discovery long before he did.  In fact, he wasn’t even the first European to land in North America. Leif Ericson had done so about 500 years before him.

What Columbus did was stumble into a discovery of this discovered land, spread the story across Europe, and the rest is history.

Like Columbus, I made a discovery of something that was always there several years ago. Others had seen it before me but for some reason, I never saw it. When I did, I felt as if I found new land when really my eyes were opened to an already settled land.

What did I uncover?

The grand narrative of the Scriptures.

I had viewed the bible as information and at best, a collection of stories.  That’s true, but it’s so much more than that. It’s all about Jesus. In fact, it’s these words from John 5:39-40 that led me to look at the common thread throughout the bible, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”

The Scriptures are a narrative of God’s epic story and it all points to Jesus as the hero of the Story and the plot is his passionate pursuit of his people. This is the heart of the gospel.

This has radically shifted my studying and teaching of the bible.  Seeing how particular passages fit into the meta-narrative found in the scriptures has opened my eyes to things I had never seen before.  I had been careful to quote verses in context but had neglected the context of the greater story that verses and passages are embedded in.  Not to mention the context of the story of my life.

This has helped me better connect the Old Testament with the New Testament.  It has opened my eyes to see Jesus in places I never expected in both the scriptures and in culture. It has shaped how I view the church in light of God’s great pursuit of his people.  It has also helped me to gain perspective of my story and how I fit into the greater story.

Since this shift, I’ve sought to write, teach, and preach by storying the scriptures.  I’m learning that stories work better at penetrating the heart and mind than mere information alone. Storying is our way of packaging information so that others can grab hold of its meaning.  When our quest for truth treks through the frontier of our imagination it produces compelling stories.

Within each of us is a longing for a story.  This is why we search and explore and why we tell others about our discoveries. History is full of amazing storyers and is how history has been passed along from generation to generation. This is why we consume books, films, and television.  This why we have conversations over food and drinks.  This is why we even ask others, “How are you doing?”  That’s nothing more than a launchpad for a story (or in most cases, an odd way of saying, “hello.”)

Whimsical writer and thinker G.K. Chesterton wrote, “I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a Story-teller.” I agree. Every tale has an author. Every story-casserole is baked in the oven of someone’s imagination. And God is the source of all stories.

His epic story is found in the Scriptures and the epic story he’s called us to live out is wrapped up in His.

This is my great re/discovery and it has awakened my soul, opened my eyes, and changed how I look at life.

I pray it will do the same for you.

The cushy oblivion known as the Island of Evangelicalism is a dangerous place.

Filled with pretentious trendiness, superficial authenticity, and plastic spirituality.

It’s the worst kind of prison because it’s one you never want to leave.

The artificial trees never need watering.

You’re always well fed.

And every one around you looks and acts like you.

We’ve traded something real for something clean.

We’re becoming cookies cut from the same cutter.

The only problem is the cutter’s not Christ, it’s consumer Christianity.

Perhaps its time for the cookies to reject the cutter.

For Stepford Christians to rage against the machine.

What if we escaped the Island and swam to the shores of biblical Christianity?

What if we became refugees from the comfortable life called evangelicalism…

and followers of the dangerous footprints that Jesus left behind?

Discovering we’re all diverse jewels within the treasure chest of God’s love.

Remembering the grace of God is not just a gift we are given, but one that we share.

Returning to the life less ordinary we find in Jesus.

Let’s become the Church we find in the scriptures.

Not start the ones in our visions of sugar plums.

Let’s make disciples guided by the gospel and rooted in love.

Not create consumers of big shows and celebrity.

Let’s show this broken world that Christ came to save jacked-up people like us.

Not hide our brokenness behind hipster hairstyles and bloated egos.

Let’s leave the isle of evangelicalism behind and simply swim to Jesus.

The Founder and Perfecter of our faith.

Churches should be like bars and keep an endless supply of grace on tap.

To a parched world, this life often feels like you’ve been working atop a roof on a scorching, hot day.

Churches can either offer an ice cold drink of grace…

Some sour, warm milk of religion…

Or nothing at all.

Too many offer the latter options.

We need more who offer the first.

Churches are to be paragons of grace.

What is the church but a people united by the gospel of grace found in Jesus?

On the cross, the keg of God’s grace was tapped and is available to all.

Forever overflowing into the empty steins of our lives and churches for a reason:

To receive it and share with others.

People can find better products and services elsewhere.

Better communicators, musicians, facilities, production, children’s environments, you name it.

But no one and nothing should outgrace us!

When two become one flesh and express their love through intimacy it may be the most harmonious and wondrous acts we humans can experience.

It’s profoundly beautiful.

It’s a gracious gift from the Creator to his beloved creation to be enjoyed.

The tragedy is how scandalously we’ve treated the gift of sexuality.

Religion has stained it with stigmas, limits, and regulations.

Self-centeredness has emptied it of its potential for meaning, beauty, and love.

What if we embraced the gift as it should be?

Two becoming one.

Naked and unashamed.

Hearts in harmony, bodies in rhythm, eyes in ecstasy.

Seeking to please one another, enjoy one another, for one another.

Marriage is the canvas in which we paint exotic portraits of passion.

We have liberty to explore new colors, try new shapes, or use familiar strokes.

Free from the shallow waters of self-interest and the nasty skid marks of religiosity.

Like heat is an expression of the sun, sexuality, like all of life, is to be an expression of the gospel.

The gospel calls us to live not for ourselves, but for others, beginning in our relationships.

We love recklessly knowing we drink from the endless fountain of God’s love.

Gospeling one another in everyday moments leads to gospeling one another in our intimate moments- and this produces magical moments.

The essence of gospel sex is this:  Love first.

We love first because Christ first loved us.

The raging waterfall of gospel sex comes from the rushing river of God’s love.

Our capacity to love one another is deeper than we can dream, more vivid than we can envision, and more exciting than we can imagine.

Our challenge as husbands and wives is to be selfless, passionate lovers who desires our beloved, cares for our beloved, and continually pursues our beloved for the rest of our lives.

All to the glory of God.

As I observed strangers become friends, I cried.

As I witnessed friends become family, I cried.

As I watched authenticity from the stage, I cried.

As I realized I am part of something bigger than me, I cried.

As I saw the gospel lived out, I cried.

As I opened my eyes to what God is doing, I cried.

I am so thankful to be a part of a community where we don’t have to pretend to be more or less than we really are.

I’m so thankful to be a part of a community who are centered on Christ, driven by the gospel, guided by scripture, and rooted in love.

I’m so thankful to be a part of a community who are on a mission to love God and people.

Thank you God for letting me be a part of this and thank you Project Church for being this kind of church.

Much love.

Click here to listen to this week’s message

Pursue yours.

When a parent chases their God-given dreams with their God-given talents, it tells their children they can too.

The parents who choose to be a martyr and sacrifice their passions “for the sake of the kids” are only fooling themselves.

They’re actually making it more difficult for them.

Making dreams seem more unattainable.

Parents, we set the example.

Let’s give our kids some footprints to follow.

Let’s show them a better way.

Take them along for the ride.

And love them along the way.

Pray they become who God created them to be.

And do what God calls them to do.

Lead by being who God created you to be and doing what God is calling you to do.

That’s how we help our kids pursue their dreams.