OPEN: Rob Bell @ his best

Good Morning! And may it be so where you are.

"And when the pie was opened, the birds began to sing..."

I have no idea how old that children's song is. Last time the line above had a redux was during the Watergate scandal of the Nixon presidency. Names like Haldeman, Ehrlichmann (translation: honorable man, Ha!), Mitchell and Dean. To which I added the line, "Agnew takes kickbacks and Nixon's obscene"--as his Watergate tapes revoltingly demonstrated.

And we thought those were disgusting times! How quaint! How childish! AIG bonuses demonstrate that the new American ethic has come to be "pay for non-performance". But, as my former Texas CEO reminded me several years back when a little investment scandal broke, "There's always a taker." Sure enough. We were only too glad to live a lie if it made us feel richer.

But here's an opportunity that comes once in a lifetime. It's the opportunity to repent, to do differently, to do better. It's the opportunity to participate in God's ongoing creation of the world and the kingdom of God. I love how Rob Bell gets there in the short film "Open". It took 50 extras with their cars, six firefighters with their truck and the Jaws of Life, a hospital and police cars to film this work. It's about prayer like nothing you have seen before.

I guarantee that it will move you. As should each day of life in God's ongoing creation of the world.

OPEN. Wednesday, March 18, 2009; 7220 SE 39th Avenue. 7 PM. FREE. Bring friends.

Shalom,

Pastor Roger