Last night I watched a fireball of a feature film. It is called "The Second Chance," was shot in Nashville, and was released in theaters in February 2006.

This film lifts a veil of niceness off of the American church and exposes ignored issues like: racial segregation, lack of compassion, prejudice, manipulation, pretense, and personality worship.

"The Second Chance" is the story of an inner city church that is indebted to the financial support of a wealthy subburban megachurch. The megachurch sends its self-promoting pastor's son to work with the inner city church and the fireworks and passions explode.

This film vividly demonstrates the desperate need for hands-on compassion and caring right here in our American cities. It sends a bold message: the willingness to personally get involved with those in need is far more important and effective than just throwing some money at our inner city problems. It stars Michael W. Smith and Jeff Obafemi Carr.

If you would like to be inspired and challenged, borrow, buy, beg, or rent this movie -- "The Second Chance."

I have recently seen two bold bumper stickers on cars on West End Avenue in Nashville. On a car this morning I saw: "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" To the best of my knowledge the answer to WWJB? would be -- nobody.

A week ago I saw a another sticker that read: "When Jesus said, 'Love your enemies,' I think He meant, don't kill anybody." Yep, that makes a lot of sense.

Have you ever wondered: Since Jesus wouldn't bomb people or kill His enemies, why do we?

A recent top headline in The Tennessean read: "Baptists hope Christ can heal their rifts". Hope in Christ is an amazing thing.

When surrounded by rifts in relationships, financial struggles, health issues, marriage problems, social pressures, violence and war, stress and emotional strain; life can seem unmanageable. Yet in the midst of your duress, the living Jesus Christ can supernaturally give you strength, endurance, peace, and joy.

I have personally known hundreds of people whose lives have been supernaturally transformed by Jesus Christ: addicts set completely free from bondage; sick people amazingly healed; angry and violent people turned into deeply compassionate human beings; and even religious people awakened to the glorious reality of the living Christ they once knew only in doctrine.

I have read the stories of hundreds of people through out the past 2,000 years of human history who have encountered the same Jesus Christ -- people from a wide variety of cultures, religions, and countries. The amazing thing is that their description of their relationship with the living Jesus matches the experience of those of us alive today.

If encountering Christ was only a subjective thing; the experiences of those who have built a personal relationship with Him would be vastly different rather than astonishingly the same. How could Augustine of Egypt in the 4th Century and Watchman Nee of China in the 20th Century have the same personal experiences with Christ? That would be impossible -- unless Jesus is alive as an objective reality like His earliest disciples claimed.

He is! Hope in Christ.

You've probably done the church-hands-fingers-thing -- "Here's the church; here's the steeple; open it up and here's the people." Well, actually, that is backwards. It would be much more Biblically accurate to start with the wiggling fingers and say: "Here's the church." Then turn your hand over and say: "Here's the building the church meets in." But that's not so poetic.

Asking someone, "Where do you go to church?" is like asking her, "Where do you go to family?" It doesn't make any sense. You don't go to family. You are part of a family. Same with church.

Church is not a building, or a Christian denomination, or a Sunday morning religious meeting. Church is the fellowship of believers. The Greek word means "called out ones." Church is a movement of called out people breaking out of the gates of Hell."

Jesus defines the church in Matthew when he speaks to Peter and says: "I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." (NIV) I have sought God about the meaning of this verse for years. This is my interpretation of it: "On this rock of ongoing personal revelation from God (individual God-connection) I will assemble my movement of called out ones, and the gates of Hell will not be able to hold them in bondage."

Because believers are called to make disciples, the focus should be on serving and ministering to people and not on building buildings, conducting programs, celebrating doctrine, or merely holding religious meetings. People build church buildings using bricks and mortar, but God builds His spiritual movement using redeemed human beings. Jesus calls His called out disciples not just to follow Him, but to follow Him in intimate, loving relationship with other believers, as part of His world-wide spiritual movement -- His church.

I woke up this morning wondering about what is the most amazing thing I have ever seen God do. I have seen God set dozens of alcoholics and addicts free and enable them to live a godly lifestyle. I hear from some of them frequently and it always amazes me what God has done and is doing for them.

I prayed for a guy once to receive the Holy Spirit and he began to speak in perfect French. (He had the accent and everything and sounded like my high school French teacher.) He kept saying "I love you, Lord Jesus," in French. (I can't spell well or I'd write it down for you.) It blew my mind. He had no idea what he was saying.

However, what may be the most amazing thing I have ever seen God do, happened in Mayfield, Kentucky. I had been the pastor of a very small and rather dry Cumberland Presbyterian Church for a few months and had been preaching about God's healing power.

One night a woman in the church almost bled to death from an ulcer. She lived with her mother who called 911 and she got to the hospital just in time. After X-rays, the doctors said she had to have emergency surgery to stop the bleeding.

She called me and said she wanted me to bring the elders of the church and pray for her. (I had been preaching on James 5:14-16 which tells sick people to call for the elders of the church to pray with them for healing.)

I called our elders (who thought I was weird) and asked them if they would go to the hospital with me. A couple of them met me there and we went in and prayed for the lady. I prayed that her surgery go well, but one of the elders, Lee, prayed that God would heal her.

After the prayer, Lee said to her, "I think you need to ask for another X-ray before you let them do the emergency surgery." She did and the new X-ray showed that she had no ulcer. The doctors let her go home and she was completely well.

As I told my wife about this experience this morning, my eyes filled with tears. It was an amazing demonstration of the power of the living God!