Pastor Jason's Summer Reading List

1. After You Believe by N.T. Wright 

            Why Christian Character Matters 

 2. Conformed to His Image by Kenneth Boa 

            Biblical and Practical Approaches to Spiritual Formation 

 3. The 3 Big Questions For a Frantic Family By Patrick Lencioni 

A Leadership Fable...about restoring sanity to the most important organization in your life.

 4. Knowing Christ Today by Dallas Willard 

            Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge 

 5. Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership by Ruth Haley Barton 

            Seeing God in the Crucible of Ministry 

 6. Monk Habits For Everyday People by Dennis Okholm 

            Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants 

 7. The Post-Church Christian by J. Paul and Carson Nyquist 

            Dealing with the Generational Baggage of our Faith 

 8. Letters from a Skeptic by Gregory and Edward Boyd 

            A Son Wrestles with His Father's Questions about Christianity 

 9. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller 

            What I Learned while Editing my Life 

 10. Spiritual Theology by Simon Chan 

            A Systematic Study of the Christian Life 

 11. The Contemporaries Meet the Classics on Prayer by Randall Harris 

            Nouwen, Luther, Chambers, Spurgeon, and more 

Leave Church Changed

What does it mean to leave church changed? The story of Peter denying Christ three times is placed directly before the story of Judas confessing his grave mistake to the religious leaders and ultimately killing himself. Matthew, the author, is making a clear point. Peter denies Christ and weeps bitterly. But in John 21, he is restored to fellowship with the resurrected Jesus by Jesus himself. He then preaches the Holy Spirit-filled sermon in Acts 2 that leads to 3,000 people being baptized and the birth of the church.

What is the difference between Peter and Judas? Why does one become the Rock of the church and one of the greatest men of church history, while the other kills himself, forever associated with the pure evil of the betrayal of Jesus? The difference is thatremorse is not repentance. Judas showed remorse but Peter engaged repentance. It is important that remorse is never confused with repentance, or change beyond the walls of the church will never occur.

In Matthew 27:3, it says that Judas was seized with remorse. Not with repentance. In the Greek language, the words for ‘remorse’ and ‘repentance’ are close but not exactly the same. Remorse and repentance start in the same place but quickly divide into two very distinct paths. Remorse is a torturing sense of guilt for one’s actions. Judas experienced remorse. He knew that what he had done was wrong, that it was sin. It tortured him so much that he eventually took his own life.

All of us have done things in our lives over which we are remorseful. We feel really bad that we got drunk - again. We are so sorry that we allowed our anger to swell up and wreck another relationship. We are weeping, broken because we got our third speeding ticket and we will now lose our driver’s license. Remorse left to itself ends in self-hatred and a clear absence of change. When you stay remorseful over something you have done it always leads to mental, emotional, physical and spiritual self-abuse. In a state of remorse, we never recognize the forgiveness that Jesus has offered each and every one of us on the cross. Remorse keeps you focused on your own sin, your own junk, your own mistakes, your own addictions, and never moves out from self and sin to Christ and forgiveness.

Peter, like Judas, experienced remorse. He wept bitterly, but his remorse led to repentance, to real change. The word used for repent in the New Testament is “metaneo,” the same word Peter used in Acts 2:38 when he preached about Jesus at the birth of the church. It’s the word John the Baptist used when he prepared the way for Jesus, and it is the word Jesus used in his ministry. That word literally means to rethink, to change your mind about something. Repentance is thinking about something in such a way that your allegiance jumps from one team to another. When a new Roman leader would come to power the soldiers needed to “metaneo” their allegiance to a new leader, a new way, a new path.[1]

One of the missteps we make regarding repentance is to think that it is about focusing on a sin in our life and recognizing that it is wrong. But that is not repentance, that is just remorse. Remorse focuses on the sin and feels genuinely broken. Remorse moves to repentance when our thinking changes about whose team we are on. And, like in biblical culture, when our thinking genuinely changes our allegiance, our actions change. You will never experience sustained change in your life by focusing on what needs to be changed instead of what you need to be changed into. Repentance recognizes the sin in our life that needs to be changed, but then moves our focus to the Christ whom we need to be changed into.

Repentance needs to start at the same place as Peter and Judas. You need to recognize your sin. Peter recognized that he had not stood by his master Rabbi in his greatest time of need, and wept. Judas realized that Jesus was innocent and was deeply remorseful. When you begin to engage repentance, you speak with clarity about what you have done. You have not truly engaged repentance until you are clear about your junk and no longer play the rationalization game. This clarity must birth a time of confession to God and also to others, as we are charged in James 5. Repentance also dictates that, if possible, some form of restitution should occur. This path leads to a true change of allegiance.

When we repent, we change teams. We are no longer loyal to our sinful nature. We are no longer loyal to the sin in our life, but we are now submitted to Christ and our allegiance resides with Him. Peter had been more interested in protecting his own skin than standing with Jesus. But that would change. Peter would boldly proclaim and stand with Jesus. And church history tells us that Peter would die for Christ, being crucified upside down. That is authentic repentance. An attitude, an action, a perspective was changed. It’s not that Peter never struggled again. He did. On one occasion the Apostle Paul had to put him back in line. Peter still struggled. When we truly repent and change our allegiance to Christ, we will still struggle. We will still sin. But in authentic repentance, the rhythm of our life begins to change; we begin to celebrate more victories, and the path of our life truly turns from our issues to the person of Jesus our Leader and Lord. In authentic repentance, we leave changed, and leaving changed is always at the heart of the church experience.

Jason Esposito
Lead Pastor

Come As You Are

In Luke 14 we find Jesus at a meal that takes place at the home of a prominent Pharisee. A very important and resourced religious leader is throwing a Passover party and Jesus is invited. We are not sure about the motives behind the invitation because Luke tells us that Jesus was being carefully watched. He begins by healing a guy with dropsy and from that point, systematically offends everyone in the room. He starts by challenging their interpretation of the biblical law that they had dedicated their life to, and moves to an indictment on how they sit at the table, a sign of honor and pride in ancient culture. He ends his rant by telling them they should not invite their friends and family because friends and family can repay them; instead, he instructs them to invite the poor, crippled, lame and blind who cannot possibly repay them.

In Luke 14:15 one of the guests at the table hears this and says, “Blessed is the man who will eat the feast in the kingdom of God.” This guy is hoping that this statement will bring a great cheer of celebration because what he is saying is, “Look at us. We are all feasting together and we are special because we will also feast in the new kingdom, the new Jerusalem that God will establish someday. We are in, we are good, so let’s party!” Jesus doesn’t celebrate this comment, but he does tell one of his imaginative parables.

A certain man was preparing the most extravagant banquet. In Jesus’ day a wealthy man who threw this kind of party would send out two invitations. The initial invite is sent out and everyone accepts the invite. You would never have this kind of party without sending out two invitations. No one would attend a party with just one invitation because of the honor and shame code of the day. What if you received the invitation by accident and it was never the intened for you to be invited? You would patiently wait for the second invitation as the servant went out and reported that the meal was ready, the table was set, the food was hot and the music was rocking.[1]

Jesus gives us three examples in the common story-telling fashion of his day, highlighting how the people invited responded. Remember, all of these people have already received and responded positively to the invitation, but now, when the servant arrives, they give some very lame excuses as to why they cannot attend the great banquet. The first man says he must go and see a field that he just purchased. The next guy just bought five oxen, about 20,000 pounds of animal. Both are lies that try to soften the rejection. The final guy has a different excuse that seems legitimate at first glance. He is possibly using the law in Deuteronomy that gives a guy permission to not go to war for a year after marriage to defend his reasons for not coming to the party. This seems reasonable until you realize that no Palestinian village would have two major banquets at the same time. And no one would quickly get married between the first and second invitation. This guy was creative with his excuse, but he is also lying.

The servant returns to the master to report the bad news. The master tells his servants to go out into the community and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame. The food should not be wasted and the house should be full with hungry appetites being satisfied. All the “important” people have had their opportunity, so now invite those who never get invited to this kind of party. Unlike the original invitees, the invisible people of their society do show up.

Philip Yancey, in his book What’s So Amazing about Grace, tells a true story that he found in the Boston Globe from 1990 that highlights this biblical truth:

            "Accompanied by her fiancé, a woman went to the Hyatt hotel in Boston and ordered the meal [for the wedding reception]. They both had expensive taste, and the bill came to thirteen thousand… The day the announcements were supposed to hit the mailbox, the potential groom got cold feet. When his angry fiancée returned to the Hyatt to cancel the banquet, the Events Manager could not have been more understanding. But about the refund, she had bad news. The contract is binding. You’re only entitled to thirteen hundred dollars back. You have two options: to forfeit the rest of the down payment, or go ahead with the banquet. I’m sorry. Really, I am. It seemed crazy, but the more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea of going ahead with the party - not a wedding banquet but a big blowout. Ten years before, this same woman had been living in a homeless shelter. She had gotten back on her feet, found a good job and set aside a sizable nest egg. Now she had the wild notion of using her savings to treat the down-and-outs of Boston to a night on the town. And so it was that in June of 1990, the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Boston hosted a party such as it had never seen before. She sent invitations to rescue missions and homeless shelters. That warm summer night, people who were used to peeling half-gnawed pizza off the cardboard dined instead on chicken cordon bleu. Hyatt waiters in tuxedos served hors d’oeuvres to senior citizens propped up by crutches and aluminum walkers. Bag ladies, vagrants, and addicts took one night off from the hard life on the sidewalks outside and instead sipped champagne, ate chocolate wedding cake, and danced to big-band melodies late into the night."[2]

The servant returns to the master and tells him that what he had ordered had been done; that the wounded and broken and outcasts of society had arrived. But there is still room at the party. Then the master tells the servant to go back out and invite everyone to come in.

We see the heart of God, who is the party-throwing master, in the story. He does not make it hard for people to come to him. And he does not force people to come to him, but he does everything to compel people to attend the great banquet. He doesn’t want just a select few to be in his house, but everyone to receive the invitation. The banquet in Jewish society was about fellowship, authentic hospitality, protection and being part of the family. The invite is for all to move from the outside to the inside; for people to come as they are to the community of faith and ultimately to Christ.

God invites the rich and the poor, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, all people to the family banquet. God is not concerned with the choices we have made, nor the past that we have lived, but he is concerned that we respond to his invitation and come into the family. As God is a “come just as you are” God, the church should be a “come just as you are” community.

Jason Esposito,

Lead Pastor

            [1] Bailey, Kenneth, Poet & Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1983), 95-99.

            [2] Yancey Philip, What’s So Amazing About Grace? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, 1997), 48-49.

What Goes On In Church Can't Stay In Church

This phrase (“What Goes On in Church Can’t Stay in Church”) is the antithesis to many of the ways the church has responded to the culture around it, and is core for the church to be a community of the curious. Historically there are three general responses by the church to the society in which it resides.

The first response is the “Let’s find a cave”perspective. It espouses that if we are to be true followers of Jesus Christ, then we must disassociate from the evils and problems of the world. We have seen many movements like this through the years such as the Amish, who separate themselves from the culture, locking themselves into the early nineteenth-century settlers’ mode. Or the compound people who buy a large plot of land in Montana, put up a big fence, stockpile food and some guns with a big “KEEP OUT OR GET SHOT” sign. Individually, we also do this by creating a Christian subculture that isolates us from the world. If you want to, you can attend a Christian school, transact only with Christian businesses, have a Christian doctor, listen to Christian music, watch Christian TV, and go online with a Christian browser. It’s not that any of these things in and of itself is entirely bad, but the fact that we have the capacity to create a “Christian” ghetto. This is not only a non-biblical response, it doesn’t work.

Second, we can have the “We are all one” response. That is, the “Can’t we all get along?” attitude. Within this philosophy, the choice is made not to isolate from the world, but to blend into the world. In fact, eliminating the distinctions between following Christ and living in the world is the goal of this perspective. In Germany, during WWII, the official church did this by supporting Hitler and the Nazi Party. In Europe today, where Christianity was paramount for 1,500 years, most of the beautiful churches are no different from the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. They are just tourist attractions because the church has lost its distinction.

The final unhealthy response is the “Storm the beaches” approach. There was an old Marine shirt that said, “Kill them all and let God sort them out.” Unfortunately, some Christ followers and churches have that military mentality: Let’s Bible-bash the culture. If they don’t get it, open their mouth wide and crank open the fire hydrant of theology; if we berate them enough, perhaps they will finally cave in and surrender to our ways. These are the churches that legalistically present the, “My way or the high way” approach to secondary and non-essential theological issues.

So how are we to respond to our culture? We do what God did. He stepped out of heaven and into the world.

What amazes me about Luke 2:6-7 is the highly regular nature of Jesus’ birth. God, in human form, enters history. He penetrates the culture and enters just like each and every one of us did as a fragile, crying baby. In verse 6, it says the time came for the baby to be born. Mary had to carry Jesus for nine months, plus or minus a few weeks just like all of us. Jesus was fully human. The Christmas song, Away in a Manger, was wrong when it said, “no crying he makes.” He did, in fact, cry, and he needed to be wrapped, just like other babies in that day, fed, and provided for.

Not only did God become man, but he also entered the world in very humble conditions. He was not the son of the wealthy and powerful, but of a common carpenter and a teenage girl. Jesus wasn’t born in a million dollar birthing room with sanitary walls, heat lamps, nose suckers and professionally trained nurses and doctors. There weren’t any proud grandparents sitting in the waiting room. He didn’t receive a baby shower, cards and balloons. There was no emergency infant ICU just in case. No, Jesus was born much like many babies all over the world today in impoverished nations. He was a human baby born to a poor family in adverse conditions. God became man and dwelt among us.

In John 1:14, the author is not only telling us that God became man, but also that he was, in fact, God. The Word orLogos became flesh and the Greek word Logos was used by ancient Greek philosophers to express the central principle of the universe. John is saying, in a language that his audience could understand, that the central principle of the universe, God himself, the Creator, became human. This man Jesus was God in flesh. He walked, he talked, he slept; but he also healed, fed thousands, and rose from the dead. Professor Leonard Sweet writes,

            "He dressed himself in the customary garb of the day where he lived. He spoke the language of the day in which he lived. He fully inhabited the cultural space of the first century…If our Savior joins us where we are, notwhere we ought to be, what excuse do we have to not join people where they are, while insisting on where they ought to be?"[1]

We must be a people who step beyond the walls of the Christian community and enter the arena that God has set before us. As a community of faith, we are challenged that what goes on in church can’t stay in church. The seventy minutes on Sunday morning is not the zenith of the Christian experience. Church service is not church, but a part of a much more potent and cultural transforming organism called church. No, what happens here (in service) doesn’t stay here, but transforms our life and community far beyond the walls of the church. We must not hide from, assimilate into, or try to destroy the people around us. But, like Christ, we must seek to understand the culture, serve people, and speak in a way that all can understand the hope that is found in Jesus. That is what is meant by, “What goes on in church can’t stay in church.”

Jason Esposito

Lead Pastor

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            [1] Leonard Sweet. Aqua Church. (Loveland: Group Publishing, 1999), 79.