Right off the bat, I've got to hand it to our all-star ushers at Lakewood. I manage to get a few fellow travellers wanting to sit with me after Compass Class went a little over on time. I'm thinking this means I'll end up with less-than-stellar seating both due to needing three seats and little time left before service starts. I notice a familiar usher who's waving me up before I inform him how many seats I need - or so I thought. I was really thinking he just assumed I needed a onesie, but he was really putting all three of us on the second row, dead center. I immediately apologized to my friends for not having enough pull to get one row further up.

So, that aside, I've got two clips that sorta accent one another. The first (over at the left) is an excerpt of Marcos' sermon. The premise of the sermon was twofold: that we need to have a cause and that there's no greater cause than Jesus Christ. Coincidentally, if you want another tangent on this point, Gary Haugen was a guest speaker at Joel Hunter's Northland Church (Week 34: "Unfamiliar Passions of God") the week before and gives another great message along this line.

It struck me as a bit odd listening to this sermon from Marcos. Odd, because it was rather affirming of what I've been through over a long course of time. It wasn't the type of sermon that I found myself listening to taking away anything new, so to speak. But that's just me. And that's not to suggest that the sermon wasn't useful for me - far from it. I have at least a small collection of causes that are interwoven and have taken up about the bulk of the past decade. And touching on that N.T. Wright quote I pulled out earlier, I keep meditating on that last sentence in particular: The substance and structure of the different aspects of our world need to be interrogated in the light of the unique achievement of Jesus.

In other words: let everything you do expand the kingdom in some way. Make the kingdom a little more enjoyable while you're at it. If you don't see how what you do does that, keep looking. I don't claim to have my own life sorted out all that neatly in this regard ... but it's been something that's a constant work in progress. And it should be for all of us.

Since it's Labor Day, I thought I'd just combine the Monday Video and YouTube Tuesday posts into this one for the day. It didn't hurt that I found myself mentally adding the song below as a soundtrack to Marcos' sermon. It confounds me as to how this song is relatively obscure as far as Stryper tunes go. Obviously, it's got a great message: Keep the fire burning ... move on ... hold on ... never let go. A little headbanging toward the end of the tune doesn't hurt, either.

Stryper: Keep the Fire Burning
[Verse 1]
We've been through a lot together
We've seen what some will never see, you and me
Prayer after prayer's been answered
We can't go on without belief, can't you see?

[Chorus]
We just gotta be strong
Keep the fire burning
Gotta move on, keep our hearts from turning
Gotta hold on, onto what you're learning now
And never let go

[Verse 2]
Nothing can stop us now
We're growing stronger every day in every way
Spreading the word together
It doesn't matter what they say, no way!

[Chorus]
We just gotta be strong
Keep the fire burning
Gotta move on, keep our hearts from turning
Gotta hold on, onto what you're learning now
And never let go