The 116 Clique is a group of hip hop artists who will positively blow you away. On their albums, the production values, the beats, and the musical quality are all absolutely one hundred percent every bit as good as anything you will hear in mainstream music.

But they are also on fire passionate about who Jesus really is.

A lot of people who read this blog (ha ha, as if this blog were really read by a lot of people) have probably seen me posting some of their videos on Facebook. These guys are fierce and militant in their dedication to Jesus, and they have a strain of righteous anger against a culture today that tells women they are only worth as much skin as they are willing to show, and tells men they are only worth how many dollars they can clock. I have a lot of admiration for all of them.

Now they have a new project. They call it Man Up. First it was a musical tour this year about what biblical manhood truly means, and how to seek it in this culture we live in. Now, they’re turning Man Up into a conference for like minded men. It seems kind of impossible to me right now, but if I can work it out I would really like to go. Here’s the video:

for Dave Gallik

I know nothing of his personal financial situation, but if he can afford to lose a $50+ thousand dollar a year job and not miss it, he must be well off indeed. I doubt he is that well off, so I imagine resigning hurts.

I hope Jesus will walk with him and comfort him and provide everything that’s needed.

I’ve lost a job in politics before. I’ve had my name dragged through the media in politics before. I know the shame that goes with it, the fear of having to look your friends in the eye.

I hope Jesus will remind Dave Gallik that he is loved.

I read in some of his comments that he felt like Republicans were to blame. I know, because I’ve felt the same thing in my own heart about his side, that no words will ever convince him of the surprise that rippled through our people when we learned this was coming. The truth is, the nature of the first couple reactions I encountered was to suspect a plot against us.

All the time, politicians get humiliated and forced out. It’s one of the hardest parts of the business I work in. It’s not every job where your defeats are a story for other people to cluck over with their morning paper.

Even people involved in the business seem to lose sight of the fact that there’s a human being on the other side of the headline. Just a man, with his own struggles and foibles and pain. Dave Gallik, Brad Johnson, and many more. Just ordinary guys doing a job that, when you lose, requires you to be humiliated in public.

Every day, I wish I could leave politics for a less stressful job. The opportunity hasn’t been there. And I think the reason is, Jesus needs people here very much. This business needs real love like no other.

In all likelihood, Dave Gallik will not happily receive any kindness or hopes for a brighter tomorrow from me. But it doesn’t need to come from me. I have a friend who can take care of that for me, and I pray that he will.

The media image of Christians who work in politics is, “We believe all gay people are bad, we must not allow any advancement of anything they as a group seek in politics.”

That is largely a straw man. It is untrue about almost anyone I’ve ever met in Montana politics, with a few exceptions that I don’t feel obligated to name. And it causes me to struggle with anger. There is such a thing as righteous anger, and part of me feels this is one of those occasions. My brothers and sisters in Christ are being visciously slandered. But on the other hand, Acts 5:41 is highly relevant to exactly this situation:

they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

It’s a favorite verse of mine, and very close to one of my all-time favorite verses. When someone who follows Jesus does something they felt led to by Jesus, and is persecuted for it, that is cause for rejoicing. I know that some of my friends will have a better heaven because of the lies told about them on earth, for how they sought to follow Jesus. So anger doesn’t seem like the right response. But it’s hard.

If I said to you, “I heard Straight Outta Compton 20 years ago, so I’m going to tell you what black people are like,” a person would rightly consider me a bigot. If I said, “I watched a production of The Merchant of Venice, so let me tell you all about Jews,” that person would probably consider me equally bigoted, and would be correct.

So what are we to say of those who purport to describe Jesus’ friends based on what they saw on CNN?

But only because Tim Tebow plays it.

And a host of other football players, of course.

The other day, I was talking to a friend of mine who expressed his dislike for some of the “anti-Tebow” comments that circulate around the Internet. What had caught his attention was someone ridiculing the idea that God would care at all about football, when there is so much pain and suffering in the world. God has more important things to do than football, the line of thinking goes. My friend thought that was pretentious — everyone who prays, prays for help with minor things in their life. So why can’t Tim Tebow pray about football?

My own take is this: Football, for it’s own sake, I don’t know whether God has any interest in. But God has immeasurable, astonishing, unbelievable interest in Tim Tebow, in me, in you, and in every single one of his people that he created. He loves, cherishes, and treasures up in his heart everything that we do.

And what we do is important because we are important.

God loves me, and so the day to day workings of the Republican party are precious to God. Vital. Indispensable. God loves Tim Tebow, and so the score of the latest Broncos game is precious to God, vital and indispensable.

There is immeasurable pain and suffering in the world, and yes, God is busy and active with every bit of it. But the great thing about God is that he’s infinite. He can never be used up. Celebrating an athletic achievement with Tim Tebow does not mean there’s less of God available to the people who are suffering.

God’s a Broncos fan. Of course, he’s a Bears fan too. And yes, Mary, a Packers fan too. He’s a you and me fan, a Tim Tebow fan, and a fan of every single human being.

In any relationship between people, there are times when you just touch base. “Hey man. Gotta run. Talk to you soon.” It happens in friendships, it happens in families, it happens in marriages.

And then there are the times when you treat the relationship as something worth spending time on. Maybe you start with “Hey man, gotta run…” and then realize what you’re doing and change over in the middle: “hang on, wait. What’s going on in your life?”

Sometimes, because I value a friend, I take the time to make the call, or sit down for a while and just chat, or listen, or do things that matter to the both of us.

Of course, the point is, for me it’s the same with God.

Some nights I get home and can’t wait to get into bed, and my prayer becomes a quick recitation. “Love you, Jesus. Please help me at work tomorrow, I really need it. Gotta run man, I need sleep.”

But lately, things have been going well in my life. I attribute it to the fact that I made a commitment to invest effort in my relationship with God, and have been keeping that commitment as best I can.

Every relationship works better when you take it seriously and work on it consistently. In that way, God’s just like any other person.

Recently I had the honor to hear a great story from a friend of mine. A friend of his — baptized Catholic, but not practicing at all — has a son, and that son — again, no religious upbringing — came out to his father one morning and described a dream in which he and Jesus defeated the devil.

On its own, pretty cool.

But the next morning, the child came back to his father with the same dream, only this time mentioning that someone named Xavier also helped he and Jesus defeat the devil. This time, in the dream, Jesus talked to the child about the concept of being Jesus and being the Father at the same time.

Interestingly, St. Francis Xavier, in Catholic teaching, has a connection to the Philippines, and the boy has Filipino heritage. He’s also a special needs child, considered autistic.

Jesus told this boy, “Have no fear.”

Joel 2:28 is pretty well known, but it’s worth quoting anyway:

And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.

I love living in the time we live in. Have no fear.

Thank you God.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” — Luke 15:19

Everyone loves the story of the prodigal son. We all think we know it by heart, but for me it’s always a beautiful experience to go and read it again, no matter how well I think I know it. And it’s always that line that makes me cry.

There are days when we feel very close to God. Then there are days when we feel like we’re still a long ways off. I like to be reminded that even when I’m still a long way off, God is running out to meet me.

…this will not be a political blog. I talk politics all day. I’m hoping for a chance to talk to people about Jesus.

It’s just that, because most of my friends are in politics, politics is going to come up here. So I hope to do a few posts in a row on specific issues, and we can talk about how followers of Jesus can try to deal with those issues.

But I’m a lot more interested in talking about miracles and love than in policy.

Well, eventually we’re going to have to get into the hard subjects, so let’s just start diving into the subject of law. Before we begin, I’ll just try to mitigate the possible fallout by saying this website is just a group of (just a couple?) believers trying to work out their relationships with Jesus. None of us are speaking here for our respective organizations.

We’re called to help orphans and widows, to visit prisoners, to help the poor and the needy. For a follower of Jesus who works in the field of American self-government, how do those callings express themselves?

There are a lot of obvious areas where this question comes up. Abortion, gay marriage, prayer in school, statues of Jesus on a Mountain in Whitefish… etc. There is a very very prevalent opinion in the media, on the left of the political spectrum, and even among some Republicans that Republicans are guilty, in these areas and others, of using the law to enforce their beliefs on others.

I want to challenge that opinion. Let’s try starting tonight by stating that there is another perspective. I either work with or  socialize frequently with many of the best-known “social conservatives” in Montana, and there is not one of them who wakes up saying, “I want to force other people to be Christians today.”

Instead, every single one of the so-called “social conservatives” that I know feels that in this culture, they are being compelled to participate in things that hurt someone they love. (By that, of course, I mean Jesus.) When the government undertakes certain actions (paying for abortions, forcing insurance plans to offer contraception free of charge) it does so on behalf of all of us, and in all our names. In a very real sense, in a social contract form of government like ours, when my tax dollars are spent to provide free contraceptives to teenage girls, I have participated by proxy in the sexualization of an immature person. I do not like that, and I object to it. Jesus suffers real pain when things like that happen. Even though I need his sacrifice every day, I still seek to minimize the things in this world that hurt him.

My hope, in the coming days, is that maybe we can have a thread about all of the most prominent social issues, and talk about how people who are trying to be like Jesus should deal with them.

I woke up one morning wanting to talk about why the “war on Christmas” didn’t sit perfectly well with me.So, since I still had bowengreenwood.com left over from my race for legislature, I used that to start a blog.

But really, the blog isn’t about me. It’s about my best friend.

I’m no televangelist. I am uncomfortable having my own name all over something that’s about Jesus. So I hereby open the comment thread for suggestions for a new name. Whichever one seems best, I’ll scrape up ten bucks to buy the domain name and we’ll call it that.