Posts by Jimi Williams
Mercy, Not Sacrifice
If you are a “doer” like me, the thought of being able to “do” something for God is really appealing. If I had lived in the Old Testament times, I would have enjoyed the temple ritual – lots of steps, everything in order with a beginning and an end.
“Doers” are really good at doing stuff. We can clean your house, mow your lawn or sew your skin back together. And there’s never an end to the stuff we could be doing. In fact, when I’m at home, sometimes I wander through the house just looking for something to fix, clean, move, etc.
But there are several instances in the Bible where “doers” get rebuked. You probably remember the story of Mary and Martha – the sisters who both loved Jesus but had very different ways of showing it. Martha was a doer, like me. When Jesus came to her house she was scurrying around the kitchen cleaning up and trying to figure out what to cook. Meanwhile, sister Mary (no relation to Jesus’ mom) was sitting with Jesus doing nothing – or at least that’s what Martha thought. Martha, indignant with her sister, rebuked her and Jesus comes to her defense.
Seems that doing is not a bad thing – but there are better things.
Jesus quotes the Old Testament prophet Hosea a couple of times in the book of Matthew, but this time he is rebuking the religious leaders instead of Martha. “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice’.” Seems like the religious guys were doers. They had their job down pat, knew all the tricks of the trade. Always careful not to touch someone who was unclean.
Sometimes in our spiritual lives, we can do it all right and completely miss the point. Especially in the south, we know how to do church and do Christian living. I can serve Christ out of my head with my heart being a mile from it. We must engage our hearts first before doing anything. Like Mary, we need to sit a bit more at Jesus’ feet and stay out of the kitchen until we are ready to serve up mercy – not sacrifices.
Jimi Williams
Worship Pastor, The Bridge
Technology Stewardship
A few weeks back when our family was on our way to Florida for vacation, I got the call that our sound mixing board had crashed during rehearsal Sunday morning and that the team was trying desperately to get it back online. Why this happened on one of the few Sundays I’m out, only God knows. But the team pulled together and there was an heroic effort to replace our main mixer with a smaller version from the youth area about 15 minutes prior to the gathering starting. Most of you probably never knew there was a problem!
Technology is both a blessing and a curse. I can’t imagine functioning without a cell phone, but I did just fine for the first 24 years of my life. Now that I have it, I can’t live without it! Sounds like a love song, eh? It’s easy to become dependent on technology. Whenever we force our kids to turn off the TV and computers, they wander around like zombies and many times end up falling asleep, which isn’t all bad. Naps are good!
When it comes to utilizing technology in the church, sometimes you have to make hard choices. To reject technology altogether would be, in my opinion, rejecting the creativity that God has given those who create new things. Things like A/C, lighting, sound reinforcement, Facebook and our website allow us to reach out to people and share the Gospel in ways that were not possible 100 years ago. But these advancements are not necessity. The church has done just fine advancing the Gospel for a couple thousand years without any of these things.
So there is a fine line of balance we have to walk with technology. How can we make practical use of it without it controlling us? I’ve been around some church leaders who are always looking for the latest gadget they can use to wow their congregations. When I leave a church gathering like that I’m often thinking more “How did they do that?” than “Man, isn’t God awesome”.
At the Bridge, I want to always use technology to the glory of God. He has to be the One that wows the worshippers.
Jimi Williams
Worship Pastor, The Bridge
Worship Ministry Lead
Bridge family, please join me in welcoming Shivonne Hood into her new role as Worship Ministry Lead. Shivonne has been serving as our vocal team leader. She will continue to work with our singers, but she will also begin assisting me in other areas of the worship ministry as well. Shivonne is a gifted singer and worship leader with an administrative mind. Now that’s an unusual mix!
As the Bridge continues to grow, the role of Ministry Lead is becoming vital. In the last 2 years, the worship team has tripled in size (30 people!) and we’ve added a 2nd service. This is all cause to praise God for what He has done!
All this growth has created additional work that needs to get done every week. I’m so thankful to have Shivonne to help out.
I’m also thankful to have Shivonne as a role model and mentor to other female worship leaders at the Bridge. This is a real under-served area of ministry in many churches and I’m glad our young girls get to see someone like Shivonne on the platform each week.
So, congrats and welcome, Shivonne! Now, let’s get to work! 
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Seeing
We live in a visual culture. Technology has advanced in light speed over the last 30 years – enabling us to see things we never thought imaginable. One problem that arises from this is the need to “see” something to believe it. We have grown so accustomed to getting live video or photos to erase our doubts that we no longer can embrace mystery in our decisions to believe.
I’m not saying that we don’t need solid proof for our decisions, but that we often demagnify things when we reduce them down to a few examples of physical evidence, especially when it relates to God. Matt Redman calls this wonderful, mysterious side of God His “otherness”. It’s the sense that God is so matchless and unique that it’s hard to find the words (or pictures) to describe Him.
I’m amused and often turned off by some of the depictions of God and Jesus that you see in the Christian bookstores. God is often made to look like Father Time, Santa Claus or Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments. Jesus is often depicted as a GQ model in a toga, blue eyes and all.
I sometimes think how much easier it would be to share the story of God if I had pictures. Real pictures, not the flannel graph stuff we saw as kids. Maybe of God chilling before time began. Or of Him leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. Or maybe a video of Jesus horsing around with his disciples. I could say “Look! Here’s a picture. Now do you believe?”
But I think one of the reasons Jesus came when he did in history, was that God didn’t want us to get caught up in what we saw. But rather, “see” him with our hearts. Jesus spent much of his teaching trying to get us to lift our eyes from the temporal to the eternal. He told his disciples in John 14:7 “From now on, you know him (God) and have seen him”. The disciples hadn’t seen God. But they had seen Jesus. He was telling them to look beyond the obvious to the mysterious. In his encounter with the woman at the well, she was talking about H2O. Jesus helped her to see a water that was beyond a scientific formula.
So don’t be afraid to embrace mystery in your faith. The next time someone asks you to explain the trinity or predestination, you can say “I’m not sure how it all works, but isn’t it wonderful!”.
Jimi Williams
Worship Pastor, The Bridge
Harry Potter and Other Christian Boycotts
The American premier of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2″ happens tonight. The Twittersphere and the blogosphere are jumping with excitement. I would probably be excited as well, except I’ve never seen a Harry Potter movie or read any of the books. I thought about it when they first came out and everyone was raving over them. But I read some article from some dude who said if I let my kids read Harry Potter they would turn into witches and warlocks. So, as a fine Christian parent, I decided the Harry Potter books and movies would never enter our home.
I’m being a little tongue and cheek here and I’m sure to hack someone off who either loves Harry Potter or thinks that J.K. Rowling is the anti-Christ. Who knows what Jesus would do. Those who claim they do know, I wouldn’t trust. So, we Christians have to navigate this mine field of sometimes suspect, sometimes benign culture.
I laugh when I think of the things we Christians have boycotted through the years. Here’s just a few:
-Teletubbies: Can we really say that Tinky Winky was gay? Hasn’t anyone heard of the man-purse? I think these are the same people who say Ernie and Bert are gay. What, so now any two guys living together are gay? The bigger question is if Ernie and Bert were kids or adults. Either way, there are questions. And what was up with the shape of Bert’s head?
-Lego Bionicles: I actually researched this one and decided on my own to boycott them. My kid just wanted to play with the action figures and wasn’t interested in the “God-like” powers attributed to each character. Probably a dad fail. I changed my position later on.
-Disney: Okay, ‘fess up. Every Christian over 40 probably tried to boycott Disney at some point. There were crazy rumors about Disney illustrators drawing lewd pictures into the animation and that gay people were working there. Imagine that. But I was a hypocritical boycotter. I agreed with my Christian friends that Disney was evil, then secretly I would watch the Lion King at home. Oh, that’s until I threw the Lion King VHS tape out because I was convicted by a fellow Christian about Simba talking to his dad’s spirit. I am not making this up.
-Rock Music. This is probably the most painful to me. When Christian (our son) was born, I chunked a bunch of my classic rock CDs for bad language or sexual innuendo (which was pretty much all of them) because I didn’t want him to be negatively influenced by them. It haven’t had the heart or the cash to replace most of them, so I listen to Jack FM on the weekends to get my hair metal fix.
All this to say, maybe I’ve let other people’s opinions influence my decision making too much. In none of these cases did I ever stop and ask “Jesus, what’s important to you?”. Looking back, I wish I’d spent less time speaking against things and more time speaking for Christ. Perhaps this is a lesson we can all learn.
So, if you see me at the Harry Potter movie, don’t judge.
Jimi Williams
Worship Pastor, The Bridge
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