run with it

apology

2009-11-30T05:32:00.001-08:00

I'm sorry for being such a whiner! I'm working on that; I promise.

4 years

2009-11-13T05:36:00.000-08:00

I just noticed that Wednesday my blog turned 4. How about that.

Hasan

2009-11-12T04:50:00.000-08:00

CNN: "He was simply a lone guy who had issues, problems, psychopathic behaviors that escalated to the point where he wanted to get back at society, and he took it out on his workmates like most of them do," he said.

This is exactly what I dared to say out loud on Sunday. I was simultaneously "checked" by half a dozen people telling me how wrong I was; that he is a terrorist; and that Muslims should always be expected to do this sort of thing. What was I thinking.

noon

2009-11-10T15:10:00.001-08:00

My headache went away at noon today. It surprising how much more clearly one can think at the end of a 2 week headache.

chasm

2009-11-08T19:04:00.000-08:00

I'm not conservative enough for my church, and now even they are beginning to realize it. This feels like a gulf that can't be breached. I'm not sure how to proceed.

how exclusive is too exclusive

2009-10-25T18:59:00.000-07:00

What makes it okay for a Christian concert held in a church to charge $25 per ticket?

Isn't that just saying, yes, we're the church and we love everyone and our doors are always open- except tonight, you gotta fork over $25 to come through our open doors? If it were held somewhere else I wouldn't have such a problem with it. And maybe it's hypocritical of me, since I'm so big about "the church" being the people and not a building. But what is the image folks outside the church have? Do they see this and say, oh the church is the really the people; no problem, it's just the building I can't afford to go to today? Or do they see a structure claimed by the followers of Christ as their space for worship and gathering, and realize that because of their financial situation, that place of worship is closed to them today?

suggestions?

2009-09-22T20:18:00.001-07:00

any suggestions for a meal time prayer for a 10 year old?

one of those email things

2009-09-20T13:19:00.001-07:00

I just received one of those Christian email things designed to make us throw up our hands in fear and fall prostrate to the ground in sheer terror for our faith is great jeopardy. Some Muslim folks want to gather for a prayer rally. Oh dreaded day.

There was also a special note about an "emergent" Christian who is actually calling for a special time of prayer that we might learn tolerance of our Muslim neighbors. This is part of the warning, apparently.

oh. oh. oh. This is me jumping up and down and biting my tongue in frustration.

I don't need to say it to you. But I am going to say it, to hopefully prevent me from chewing through part of my desk.

Jesus Christ did not call us to oppose any religion but to love all mankind.

How, I wonder, do these fearful inflammatory folk think our Muslim neighbors will feel when they hear the "Christians" are rising up in prayer and panic over their own prayer meeting? As if they will suddenly realize the love and salvation of Jesus Christ because they're being looked upon like predators for having a prayer meeting? That's NOT what Jesus would do. I don't care where the meeting is. (Washington.) This is a free country. And, by the way, that freedom was a God given idea. You know, freedom to worship and all that.

The Crusades are over. It was wrong then and it is still wrong now.

Thanks I feel better.

things to say

2009-09-11T06:11:00.000-07:00

I actually do have a few things on my mind. I just don't know when I'm going to find the time and presence of mind to sit down and type them.

not so grand start

2009-08-27T05:13:00.000-07:00

Well we started school on the 17th, only to get sick by the 21st. Ruby is well; I'm still on the mend. I'm feeling overwhelmed, blue, tired, and extra curricular activities haven't even begun yet. All in all, not off to such a good start. I'm hoping for an upswing---SOON.

better

2009-08-13T06:05:00.000-07:00

I'm enjoying our surprise extra week of summer! No deadlines or scheduled activities, no rushing, no home improvement projects! It's the first full week of this I've had and it's nice. I wouldn't want it all the time, but for the last week it's a nice little gift.

:-(

2009-07-30T06:15:00.000-07:00

feeling sad that we only have a little over a week of summer break left...

the church that mirrors a failing system

2009-07-14T06:26:00.000-07:00

Grace has some insightful thoughts on the implications of a failing economy on the church system that was designed to mimic capitalism. Here are her conclusions:

I don’t know if there is hope for economic and political change or revolution in that arena. That isn’t what I want to address. These articles highlight the depth of failure by the church to model an alternative truth.
A few thoughts…
The dominant cultural model of our churches has been to copy the models of corporate business in organizational structures, leadership styles, productivity, performance, and marketing.
Perhaps those systems that mirror the corporate culture will also mirror their collapse.
Should we look to these same systems to organize the recovery of a church that could be different?
The church that exemplifies the kingdom is not conducive to the powers of an elite oligarchy.
The church that is an alternative witness to this culture will look radically different than the celebrity-led, consumer-fed, mega-campus complex.
God forgive us for the turbo-capitalism that drives us to success rather than faithfulness.
Sometimes the failure of all that previously worked is the doorway to an opportunity to be stripped of what is unnecessary and introduced to the beauty and simplicity of life in the kingdom. I have a glimmer of hope that the church is being turned in this direction.

Be sure and read her whole post.

Welcome to the Faith

2009-07-09T05:13:00.001-07:00

David Hayward(nakedpastor) hits it out of the park with this one

Finished!

2009-07-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

The School Room:

The Art of the Archive

2009-06-25T05:24:00.000-07:00

Elesha Coffman at The Christian History Blog has a great article on archive research. Not for everybody, but there are a few of you out there who, like me, will want to tuck this information away for future reference. Here's is just the beginning:

1. Contact the archivist before you arrive. Archivists are an underappreciated lot. Most of those I’ve worked with are based in university libraries, tucked away somewhere far from any windows that might permit deadly sun rays to strike fragile manuscripts. They know their collections, they know their policies, and they’re generally eager to help any researcher who actually manages to find them, but they need more lead time than your basic librarian

that time again

2009-06-17T19:34:00.000-07:00

it's that time again. summer project update.

i've cleaned out the school room (and cleaned and cleaned), patched the holes in the walls, and started masking. i'll start with painting the ceiling and then move on from there. want to guess the wall color the wee one chose? here's a hint: it's the color of a fruit.

here are a couple of photos. I'll have more on my facebook page for anyone who wants to go there to see them.

almost empty

where it all went

summer

2009-06-06T05:58:00.000-07:00

Summer is in full swing here now. I'm preparing for my annual summer paint project- this year it's the school room/study, and will be augmented by the wee one's tastes and choices. (read- it's going to be a bit wild.) But that's okay- it's her room too. It will be fun, once I get all the books and projects and shelves and computers and junk out.

This coming week I have jury duty for the first time. My daughter has violin camp, which Keith will take her to since he'll be working from home due to my aforementioned civic duty, and we will have a house guest. If you see me, don't be surprised to see my head spinning around. It isn't demonism--just confusion.

Here is a photo of our vegetable garden this year. It's doing well. The squash are again affected by mildew/mold but I've learned that spraying with a milk and water mixture is better than fungicide for treating plants with that problem. I haven't yet worked out how often and what concentration of milk is optimal in our garden, but i'm optimistic (er- overuse of "opti" words). We've had a few good squash grow to maturity and that encourages me.

The Great Emergence, Continued

2009-05-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

from The Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle:

"...when pinned down and forced to answer the question, 'What is Emergent or Emerging Church?' most who are will answer, 'A conversation,' which is not only true but which will always be true. The Great Emergence can not 'be,' and be otherwise..."

Tickle quotes Donald Miller:

"I believe that we are witnessing a new reformation that is transforming the way Christianity will be experienced in the new millennium. This reformation, unlike the one led by Martin Luther, is challenging not only doctrine, but the medium through which the message of Christianity is articulated... these 'new paradigm' churches have discarded many of the attributes of established religion. Appropriating contemporary cultural forms, these churches are creating a new genre of worship music, restructuring the organizational character of institutional religion, and democratizing access to the sacred by radicalizing the Protestant principal of the priesthood of all believers."

Tickle goes on, later:
"The actual nature of the Atonement, for example, or the tenet of an angry God who must be appeased or the question of evil's origins are suddenly all up for reconsideration. If in pursuing this line of exegesis, the Great Emergence really does what most of its observers think it will, it will rewrite Christian theology--and thereby North American culture--into something far more Jewish, more paradoxical, more narrative, and more mystical than anything the Church has had for the last seventeen or eighteen hundred years...Regardless of what its theology eventually matures into, however, there is no question that the Great Emergence is the configuration of Christianity which is in ascendency.

"What is not nearly so easy to discern just yet is how the Great Emergence will interface with the results and consequences of such realignments; and more than any other of North America's Christians, it is emergents themselves who are going to have to reconsider Emergence Christianity. They must begin now to think with intention about what this new form of the faith is and is to become; because what once was an engaging but innocuous phenomenon no longer is. The cub has brown into the young lion; and now is the hour of his roaring."

I don't know whether or not to agree with this last statement of Tickle's, but I seem, nonetheless, to be experiencing it. I no longer find that I can easily push aside my disparate thoughts about church, God, and our relationship with Him. These thoughts (or the children of them) keep coming out- not oozing quietly- but plopping out at inopportune moments. Usually when surrounded by people who can't fathom what is going on in my mind, nor do they seem to want to. I regret this on several levels, yet I'm still a bit confounded about how to manage it.

The Great Emergence

2009-05-10T16:31:00.000-07:00

As I've been given time off from cooking and other chores today (yea!) I thought I'd tell you about The Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle.

She begins with the supposition that, according to Rev. Mark Dyer, "about every five hundred years the Church feels compelled to hold a giant rummage sale. And, he goes on to say, we are living in and through one of those five-hundred-year sales."

The five hundred year points are typically referred to in terms that begin with, or are associate with the word "great," hence, "The Great Emergence."

There was the beginning of the church in the 1st century.
Then around 500 years later there came Gregory the Great and the beginning of the monastic movement following the fall of the Roman Empire.
Next, around the 11th century came the Great Schism, the divide between the Eastern Orthodox Christianity (Constantinople) and the Western Church (Rome.)
The most easily recognized "great" is the 16th century Great Reformation with Martin Luther and his 95 theses nailed to the door at Wittenberg church-- thus laying the foundations for Protestantism.
That bring us to the 21st century and what Tickle is calling the Great Emergence.

I'm with her on this. The majority of the book is a well researched explanation of these events in the life of the Church, bringing us to many observations about the changes in Protestantism in the 20th century which got us to the state of flux we are in today. I think she does a good and thorough job of this, without crossing over into tedium.

The point being made that the Church was ripe for a rebirth, the author goes on to explain the emerging church as she sees it. I'll write a little about that explanation in a follow up post.

10 survival tips

2009-05-06T16:50:00.000-07:00

David at nakedpastor has some in depth food for thought:

"I think all religious communities, like our earth, are on a collision course with their demise. And it’s our own fault, not the “world’s”. I’ve been mulling some thoughts around. If we are going to survive into the future, our communities need to:

get and stay small (like the best farms);
be autonomous but accountable to other communities (like tribes);
be indigenous in expression (local creativity and freedom of expression);
see love as the new hermeneutic of our books (instead of obedience, justification, salvation, etc.);
reject even the subtlest forms of coercion (no imposed agendas);
abandon visionary thinking (love without the oppression of expectations);
cultivate thinkers who explore the reconciliation of all things (global intelligence);
commit to long-term or even life-long oversight (relationship);
build an attitude of resistance to success-story thinking (anti-pop);
engage all sciences, religions and philosophies with an open, compassionate and humble mind (dialogue)."

counting heads

2009-04-28T08:23:00.001-07:00

Dan has stopped counting heads at church. More power to him! I wish all our denominational pastors would be so courageous.

scot on church plants

2009-04-19T14:26:00.000-07:00

Why Me?, Scot Williams

"i have been asked to give my reasons why i no longer go to real church anymore, why i handed in my ordination and though repeatedly asked, why i refuse to take it back, and why i no longer advocate planting churches for the vast majority of evangelicals. how could i, a career planter, bite the hand that has almost fed me for so long? i hope that it is because of this longevity in a field with few lifers that i have at least a smattering of some credibility. here's an excerpt...

"I was getting my passport this week. You know how it is… you sit and wait and then someone calls you up and asks you a bunch of questions. So she asked me, 'why are you going to Orlando?' I wanted to say something like, 'I’m starring in a Body Building Movie', but instead I confessed, 'I’m going to a conference about starting new churches'. Then she asked me a question, and it’s the only question I’m going to address. She said this, "well then maybe you could answer this for me… 'why would anyone want to go to church?'"

It's worth reading scot's entire post. I'm anxious to hear how this speaking engagement goes for him.

paradox

2009-04-12T18:21:00.000-07:00

Jamie at Our Missional Pilgrimage writes on The Community Longing to be the Church, out of his church planting experiences of late. He also beautifully summarizes the truth of the life of the believer as part of the body of Christ.

Here is just the last paragraph. I want you to go to his site to get the rest.

"We are The Community Longing To Be The Church. We live in the paradox of longing to become while already being. We are the Church. We are the Body. And yet we are so far from it. In this tension- in our sin and selfishness- we discover our desperate need for God and even, often grudgingly, for each other. We love God with all our hearts, but those hearts are divided. So we come together, through His Spirit to seek the love of the Father as we seek to become more like the Son. And we see that this is achieved in the chaos and brokenness of the Cross. Our hope is that, as we are poured out by and for Him, we can become the community He has created us to be. It is here that we discover the deeper truth:
"We are The Community Longing To Become Christ."

twit

2009-04-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

Why I won't be twittering.

thanks to Glenn.