John Fischer The Catch

Something from nothing

Posted on July 18, 2019 by jwfisch

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Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could. So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good. – The Sound of Music

The sentiment in this song is a beautiful and tender expression of grace from a human perspective. It’s a statement of astonishment — of surprise. It’s a universal feeling of what happens when we fall in love. Suddenly someone loves us back — someone more wonderful than what we feel we deserve. We know there are truly unlovable things about us, but for some reason unknown to us, someone is willing to overlook those things, or perhaps — even better — they don’t even see them.

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Posted in God's love, grace | Tagged God's love, grace | 3 Comments

‘Undifferent’

Posted on July 17, 2019 by jwfisch

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In his new book, God At Work: A Testimony of Prophecy, Provision and People amid Poverty, our own Catch MemberPartner, Drew Snider, tells the story of how he almost tripped over a pile of clothing on skid row in Vancouver, British Columbia, that turned out to be the clothes of a crack-smoking hooker, and she was inside them. It was in stopping to talk with her and in listening to her story that he first discovered people in her situation were actually “undifferent” from him. Yes, “undifferent” is not a word, but Drew and I decided, after our BlogTalkRadio interview last night, that we were going to make it one, only because it perfectly conveys what we want to say, and in not being an official word, it will make it unforgettable, which it needs to be so we can all remember it.

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Posted in Poverty & homelessness | Tagged caring for the homeless, poverty | 6 Comments

The Big One

Posted on July 16, 2019 by jwfisch

Californians are talking about earthquakes again. Faults, and tectonic plates, and shifts in the earth’s crust are all the rage. After 20 years of relative calm, everyone is wondering when and where the next one will come. And here in southern California, they’re talking again about the Big One — the one that’s going to bring devastation on Los Angeles.

I want to talk about the Big One today, but it’s not an earthquake, it’s a shift in perception that typically occurs in all Christians because of our human bent towards performance. It’s as devastating as a major earthquake — even more so — because it robs the gospel of its power.
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Posted in discipleship, grace, Old/New Covenants | Tagged grace, new covenant | 4 Comments

Ask not what you can do for God

Posted on July 15, 2019 by jwfisch

David wanted to build God a house. It didn’t seem right that he was in a nice cedar-built mansion and the Ark of the Covenant — the portable presence of God the children of Israel had been carrying around ever since they left Egypt — was still in a tent.

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Posted in church, grace turned outward | Tagged body of Christ, church | 3 Comments

Speechless in (your city here)

Posted on July 12, 2019 by jwfisch

Speechless in Los Angeles

If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself. 2 Timothy 2:13

We have a Catch member who has found out his wife has been unfaithful. Though his heart has been broken and he’s lost nights of sleep, his attitude is one of a loving, forgiving husband that recalls that of Hosea, a prophet in the Old Testament who was called of God to marry a prostitute. He proceeds to love her through her escapades, taking her back again and again and even going out after her to find her and bring her back. In so doing, he is illustrating how God loves Israel who as a nation whores after other gods, and yet God remains faithful to her, taking her back time and time again. This is, indeed, the history of much of the Old Testament.

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Posted in God's love, grace, grace turned outward | Tagged God's love, grace, grace turned outward, unconditional love | 4 Comments

‘If I should die before I wake’

Posted on July 11, 2019 by jwfisch

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Mike Trout is #27, but not this All-Star game. He wore #45 in honor of Tyler Skaggs.

Now I lay me down to sleep;

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

The recent death of 27-year-old starting major league pitcher Tyler Skaggs in his sleep gives new meaning to this well-known nursery prayer. At 27, and in excellent health in the prime of an athletic career, you — and certainly everyone around you –expect yourself to be waking up in the morning. You don’t even think about praying that prayer, and yet, as God would have it, Tyler never woke up that Monday morning, but his soul did. From what one of his teammates said about knowing he would be seeing “Skaggsy” again someday, it appears that Tyler did know about meeting the Lord in his sleep.

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Posted in Baseball, Meaning of life | Tagged Baseball, belief in God, death | 6 Comments

Case dismissed

Posted on July 10, 2019 by jwfisch

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Three months ago, I spent the morning in a courtroom with my 19-year-old son, Chandler. Although he was of the age that the court now treats him as an adult, I went along for moral support. About a year ago, he went through a tough emotional period due to some huge personal intrusions into his life, and had taken his frustration out in his driving, ending up with three speeding tickets along with a fourth one we were in the courtroom for which was for driving on a suspended license, which in California is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail. We were prepared for anything including huge fines and maybe not getting his license back for years.

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Posted in freedom, grace | Tagged grace, Judgment Day | 7 Comments

‘Thank you’ as a way of life

Posted on July 9, 2019 by jwfisch

“Thank you.” No more valuable words were ever spoken. So simple, yet so profound.

Marti recently met for lunch with a well-known author and researcher who began their conversation by thanking her. Marti recalls being completely unsettled by this. The surprising thing is that she doesn’t even remember what he thanked her for now — it really didn’t matter — it was the mere fact that he was thanking her, and what that did for her, that mattered.

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Posted in grace turned outward, walk by faith | Tagged grace turned outward, thanksgiving | 9 Comments

Eva Mozes Kor 1934-2019

Posted on July 8, 2019 by jwfisch

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Marti and I spent some time yesterday getting to know about Eva Mozes Kor, a Holocaust survivor who died Thursday on the 4th of July at 85. We want to thank our good friend of the Catch, Robert from Seattle, for introducing us to the story of this remarkable woman who survived torture and unspeakable atrocities in Auschwitz. As a twin, she and her sister were subjected to a host of dehumanizing experiments by doctors who treated them worse than laboratory rats.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

The experiment lives on

Posted on July 3, 2019 by jwfisch

I think we often forget that America was and is an experiment. At no other time in history has the setting and the resources been so right to begin a democracy. And the fact that the country is still strong and a leader in the free world is a tribute to those who envisioned it and built it with the tools to make it sustainable. We have every reason to celebrate its beginnings tomorrow: Happy Birthday America!

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