RE-Connect

Here's a big long post with lots of stuff:

OLD PEOPLE: I have a growing fascination with old people. I think the most major social transition period in the west is adolescence. The second most major is retirement. I am finding that old people are just like teens only slower. There's the same sub-groups: not goths and skaters, but singers and weirdos and populars and rebels and hypers. So, perhaps a better transition for aging youth pastors is to seniors ministry, not senior pastor? I think this might help, because not all old people are cranky - and some of the crankies need a bold youth pastor to call them out and ask them why they are cranky...just like a teenager...

LAX06: We took 18 kids and 9 leaders (7 rookies!) to Pasedena and Compton for 9 days of being in the music of the kingdom of God. We worked and worked and prayed and were among people who live in the most dangerous areas of our country. It was really amazing to see the way that God worked...you can listen to the sermon here: LA Sermon - it'll only be up for a few weeks, so check it now.

BUSH: if you haven't seen bush singing U2's sunday bloody sunday - google it and you will see.

GETTING LOST: try it. I've done it a few times in the last few months - it's good for you.

Saddle

Trying to get back in, with 6 books to blog on my 50 books in 2006 tour. I want to talk about old people. About the LA missions adventure. About getting lost. Bush singing. Lots of stuff.

Warning!!:

I am going to edit out the blog roll on the right, I have some peeps who don't post and I'm going to eliminate a few dead links. Don't be surprised.

Seacrest Out.

Pat Freaking Robertson is a saint

...these people are devilish. You've got to love the little question by Hannity at the end of this...I won't give it away, just watch.

baptist hate group on hannity and colmes

Cranked.


ht: Driscoll

Lj - emerging theologian 3

So last night LJ and I were doing our evening prayers, complin, if you will. We ususally say the shema, the same prayer and have a 4 sentence conversation about our commitments to each other. Recently, however, we have added Psalm 115:1-3 to his memorization. Here's a little tidbit from last night:

LJ:Why do the nations ask, where is their
Jesus...God?..Jesus..our...uhhh...He is in heaven, he does whatever he
pleases.

Me: great job, let's pray.

Lj: I said Jesus, not God, oops.

Me: That's ok - they're sort of the same.

LJ:...(puzzled look)...

Me: Well God is like the Father and Jesus is like the Son (using the
word like to try explain the intricacies of explaining unexplainable truths
about God using the English language)

Lj: Like me and you!

Me: ...(hesitating...considering the implications of my son comparing
himself to Jesus and me to God - what's good and what's bad about it)

Lj: Who's the mommy?

Me: ...(considering my options: 1. say God, let my child in on the
majesty of God's motherly loved that is expressed inthe Scritpures; 2. say
the Holy Spirit and get into a conversation about the Trinity and later have to
explain that the Holy Spirit is probably not a boy or a girl; 3. Say Mary
and let my son revere her)...(my answer...) Mary, the virgin Mary,
she is Jesus' mom.

Lj: ok, let's pray

Spiritual Leadership, J. Oswald Sanders

This book was one of my assigned books read by our staff and discussed in staff meetings. This one actually worked better than most - it didn't turn into a karioke evaluation after the middle trying chapters that are found in most books.

i am trying to process this one, though. I am living in a context where Rob Bell tells me, Everything is Spiritual, yet, if there is a such thing as spiritual leadership, then it follows that there is a such thing as unspiritual leadership. So how can I say everything is spiritual, when apparently it is not? Then, (using Bell's logic of everything being spiritual because there is no Hebrew word for spiritual - thus everything is spiritual) possibly, can it not be true that nothing is spiritual? I can't believe that, though, because then God would be a liar. As a point of note, apparently Bell has merely borrowed a phrase that Schaffaer used before him, and explained a little more cartesianly.

Anyways, I am beginning to sound like a Nate rant when he has overdosed on Lewis...lol.

So, I am living in this tension of everything being spiritual but assuredly old-school (read: reductionism) Sanders says, apparently, that it isn't. I have a hypothesis - maybe everything is spiritual, but sin rips the spiritual out of things. And then, the regeneration/renewal/salvation of all things that Jesus is doing could be described as working the spiritual back into all things.

So here's some quotes contributing to the tension:

> p.18 "True leaders must be willing to suffer for thee sake of objectives great enough to demand their wholehearted obedience."

> p.28 "A true leader influences others spiritually only because the Spirit works in and through him to a greater degree than in those he leads."
So, then, why? Doesn't this mean a pastor cannot spiritually lead those who are more spiritual? Isn't there a problem in this somewhere when we have 26 year olds graduating seminary and pastoring people who have been following God for fifty years?

> p.32 "Spiritual goals can be achieved only by spiritual people who use spiritual methods."

>p.53 on young leadership, "...pray while others daydream..."

>p.75 "Any position of leadership involves a considerable amount of correspondence, and letters are self-revealing"
I ripped on this section in a staff meeting - it's all about how writing letters is so important. Hello?? email!! Anyways...

>p.85 "The spiritual leader should outpace the rest of the church, above all, in prayer."

>p.87 "Jesus performed miracles without a sign of outward strain, by 'he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears" (quoting Hebrews 5:7)

p.157 "Many influential Christians have fallen before this temptation [indispensability]. It seems that Christians are especially prone to it. They cling to authority long after it should have passed to younger people."
I think this is going to be a trying point for much of the modern/baby boomer leadership in existence today. Even more so because of a lack of understanding and suspicion that leads to a dismissal of postmodernity.

Good stuff. I wouldn't have read this book if I hadn't been told to, but if I only ever did what I wanted I would only grow in some areas. This book helped to balance me and see through some biases that I had been reading in other texts.

shabbat

this is short because it got erased earlier today. I've taken the last couple days off and rested and used energy in non-ministry ways (the only people I looked to care about were sleeping in my house, taking my order, or playing center for the Miami heat).

I have also joined the world of downloading podcasts. I love it because I can have lots going on while I am working. Right now I just finished with some Miroslav Volf and am listening to Donald Miller read his new book.

I love this stuff.

Today I worked on our summer missions trip, happening in two weeks. Should have it finalized by tommorrow. Cool stuff, with God smiling on the whole effort. The giving spirit of the adults in our church is humiliating to me. They are so amazing.

Ok - lots of posts coming - I have a ton of books to upload.

C.S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

So this is one of the 50 books I want to read and blog on this year. It is a super easy read, probably one of the easiest for me this year. Given my son's addiciton to all things Narnia and his desire to change his name to Peter and become a SpiderMan Knight...I read this book.

The first part of my reflection is this: "People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time." This is Lewis' version of paraorthodoxy. A lot of what Lewis describes in this book has to do with understandings of the kingdom of God. Obvious parallel's abound. Which brings me to today's rant:

I am so sick hearing of people criticizing emerging churches and theologies by saying that they are not new - that they have been doing them since _______(fill in appropriately irrelevant period of time). This whole thing about Emergent is about recovering a gospel which is not so affected by modernism; it's not about just being NEW! So, it's a cultural process and just because you finger painted Jesus when you were in middle school, you are not somehow culturally hip and Emergent. In fact, culturally hip and Emergent are mutually exclusive - they are not the same. I think this is the basis for a lot of this criticism - people who are scared and feeling like if they are not emerging then they aren't cool and will become irrelevant. All that to say - you don't need to announce that you are emergent or that emergent is a fad or say anything abstract about postmodernism to try to undermine it. For me, I am a postmodern person who grew up in a postmodern environment - it's not a bunch of intellectual abstractions to me; it's family, it's relationships, it's Jesus. Just because I (or Emergent) am (is) intellectually wired that doesn't mean that my (Emergent's) relationship with God is intellectual. (breathe!)

The second part of my reflections is how easily the culture industry is having their way with the church. We will sell our souls to any loser who makes a movie that has anything to do with religion. It's as if we don't even notice that if you want to make an extra $100,000,000 for your movie you should market it through chruches. Give pastors free sermons that interact with it and the people will go out in unthinking droves. I am so scared of the implications of this that I can't even imagine how badly we need to think this through. I'm not against Narnia, or DaVinci Code or Passion of the Christ - I just think that we need to be a little more aware of how Hollywood is whoring out the body of Christ.

I'm in...

Ok - so I know that I will have to do pennance for my past sins - more to Sarah Uhden than to Jesus. But I have long been an opponent to the hype that is Pirates of the Gayribean...er...Caribean. And yes I know that's not spelt rite - in the future spelling will be an art not a science.

Anyways - I have decided that I will become a Pirates of the Caribean fan. I won't dress up or anything silly like that, but I will pay my 9 bucks to go see the movie. And pay for my wife also, I'm good that way. Anywyas - I've always loved J.Depp and now I will be a part of his massive clan of followers.

And know the answer to the question you are asking your computer screen...why? What has swayed you? Here's the answer in the form of a quotation of dialogue from the upcoming sequel:

elizabeth: there will come a moment when you have a chance to do the right thing.

cap’n jack sparrow: i love those moments.

(pause)

cap’n jack: i like to wave at them as they pass by.

This post has been edited...

Mike King

Mike King runs a ministry in the middle of the country that I would take my kids to if I was in the middle of the country.

And his blog is killer. Talking about the DaVinci Code and sermon ideas, he recommends, "I'm Sorry that I have not taught the basics of orthodoxy and church history because I have been too busy teaching politics so it is no wonder you are bothered by something silly like the DaVinci Code."

Killer.

TidBits

Some random stuff that is affecting my reality...

>> The Canadian dollar has passed 90 cents which impacts the Candian economy in a negative way and has lined up the international oil trade with the Canadian dollar. The two have nothing to do with each other, but the international trade community seems to think so.

>> LJ is terrified of going numero duex - this morning he went and told Heather that his sides hurt - Heather told him that is his body telling him that he has to go to the bathroom - LJ said that it was his body telling him that mommy needed to hold him.

>> Chelsea is getting aggressive. Her career in mixed martial arts fighting is looking promising.

>> President bush finally called the Darfur crises a genocide. Finally...hopefully...

Sale of YS

Every youth pastor in the nation with nothing better to do watched a little video yesterday letting us know that Youth Specialties has been sold. YS is a big supporter of my ministry - they supply me and resource me and everything in between to help me be me.

I love that they are selling and gaining more resources through Zondervan. Zondervan, of course, belongs to News Corp, so now maybe YS will become more supportive of W., like FoxNews is (please note I am as serious about this as I am about the Christian butt-jeans).

Anyways - the biggest reason that I love YS is for the way that they make me feel "normal" for having a calling to youth ministry. Through their conventions, books, emails, and encouragment that makes them more than a company, they have become a friend/organization that isn't shocked for the love that I have for teens in Albany.

I am a friend of Emergent, yes, but I am a really good friend of YS!

Our Medium Group

I kind of lead our small group. Except there is about 18 people in it, so I like to call it a medium group. But I can't do that too often because it makes it sound like a coven. We meet everyother Friday night and pay to have the kids taken care of. I really love the people in our group.

We are normal people, ex-anythings that are trying to learn to follow and become a community of Chrsitians who are committed to each other, Jesus and those not in our medium group. We want Albany to be better because we are becoming more like Jesus. We want to gather and yet be different so that we have diverse relationships.
We are all similar age and have kids, but that was an accident (not the kids, the formation of the mediums).

So last week we started watching The Jesus I Never Knew with Yancey. When we came back from the video (VHS, we had to watch it in another room) I sat on the floor (like the hippy I am) and the whole group set up in stadium seating on the couch and stools behind the couch. Since I am trying to help us create a group instead of a feeding trough I asked (told) them to move around to the side and make more of a circle. I asserted my leadership. I got a couple weird looks but they moved and we had one of our best groups ever. The conversation wasn't all through me, it actually moved around the room and there was direct interaction between people. I was very blessed.

I am thinking about this, though, becauseo reading Dan Kimball's reflections on pews and thinking through my own theological avariance to pews (it worked in a system that is now obsolete). And I am thinking about our small group last year, where I tried to not be the leader and just be communal. That sucked. The group was great, and I loved the people, but we went no where. Albany was not better because we met on Friday nights.

This year I have been asserting myself as an emerging leader. It feels weird, different, but I am, I think, more truly living out my calling as a pastor when I am leading people (youth, adults, seniors, whoever). Not way out in front, but just barely ahead and helping them to come see more of the Jesus-way (props to Sander's Spiritual Leadership).

Who would have thought all this up? What a blessing to partner with the Lord in what is coming soon and is already here...but has been forever.

J<><

Sharks

Jaws came out when I was very young. I am afraid of sharks and because of that I hate them. I hate being afraid of anything. So I think I need to make it one of my life goals to touch a shark.



maybe a small one in captivity would be a good baby step...

SHAQ

This year I was nervous. I have to admit it. The HEAT just didn't seem to be getting it together. But - SHAQ IS BACK!!

scoring 49 points in two games on only 30 shots (let's see Kobe do that!) and shooting 73% from the line.

Detroit who? Pistons? I might remember them...they used to be the favorites, right? Before SHAQ woke up?

Doug Pagitt, Preaching Reimagined

I read this book before going to the National Pastors Convention (which is a set of blog posts that I need to finish) where I was going to learn from Doug. I went to a early morning book club, but Doug talked for a long time and I didn't get a chance to ask my questions...that sucked and I was disappointed for getting up that early.
This book is a viewpoint that preaching goes more on the pastor side (as oppossed to the prophet side, ala Driscoll and Bell). It has some really interesting insights - if you are one who leads and addresses the whole congregation, it's very likely worth the read. Here's some stuff that I was drawn to:

>> Doug's style of preaching is (self-) called progressional dialogue. He calles traditional preaching, "spreaching". Saying that the church is the only place in culture where spreaching happens. I think comedians do it to though...but I don't know what the implications of that are for preachers...

>> p. 31 "We tell the story of the Spirit blowing where it will. Yet we resort to speaching in an effort to protect the story, to make it digestible and applicable. The gospel is simply too powerful for that kind of control."

>>p. 35 "I'm not suggesting we need a new kind of preaching to reach a target market. Rather we need a new kind of preaching because we need a new us."
And I (james) think the same can be said for forms of church!

So what is the role of apostolic leadership in the emergent church?

>>Chapter 11>>Implication vs. Application>>This chapter put to words much of my thinking on the application/implications that are presented at the end of Purpose Driven sermons..."Think about the ways in which the disciples responded whenever they listened to Jesus preach. They wondered what this call would mean for them. They talked to each other about what they'd heard. They asked Jesus questions about how his words were changing them. They were not asking questions of application, but of reorientation."

The gospel is not a prescription!

What does this look like in youth ministry?

>>p. 145 on pastor burn-out rates: "Something is tragically amiss when the life-giving gospel becomes hazardous to the lives of the people most engaged in it."

Divorce kills the Sabbath. Kids spend the week at one place and the weekend somewhere else....where do they rest if both parents are trying to get maximum relationship out of the kids?

I think I like this book mostly because it helps me to go somewhere with my
thoughts. Pagitt doesn't tell me things as much as he gets me going in
directions that lead to really really awesome thoughts, feelings, changes
and expressions of Christianity in a postmodern world.

We've gone too far...

We should, in the America that is marketed Christianity, take notice when the Christianity we are marketed may have gone too far. This, I believe, is too far.



But it is so dang* funny!!

(*that dang was especially for Cassie...)

Recent Searches

Here's some recent searches that have ended up in the reorientation:

>> mtv overdirve (and yes, that's spelt wrong...)
>> "mark driscoll"
>> leron schults
>> "shed his blood with me today shall be my brother"

Prayer Rug

So I get this prayer rug in the mail, two or three times now and they say that if you mail it back, after using it, that you will be blessed a bunch. So I checked the appropriate boxes (asking for a blessing to cover all of our debt) and sent it in. Thing is, I used the name John E. Rocket. They sent me a book now! It's called the Seed Principle, and you can see where this is going. Apparently now I mail something else in, the little card on the back, and they rush me something else so that God can be my financial partner.

Th church website is here, and apparently they have been accused of being a scam trying to get people's money - I don't know how that could be!

This is even better than doing the publisher's sweepstakes!!

Driscoll, Confessions of a Reformission Rev.

After reading this book, I am going to buy Mark's other book, Radical Refomission. It's really, really super. I am going to go through my regualr drill of quotes, questions and thoughts, but you should know that I stayed up until 2 am on a Saturday reading this book, and then spent two hours praying really hard. Then slept for almost three hours and went to Sunday - ministering to/with people from 8 am to 10 pm with a 1 hour lunch and a 15 minute dinner - and I didn't feel all that tired...a little scatter brained, but most people don't notice that as unusual.

Anyways - here it is!!

>> I noticed right off that Mark sees himself as a missionary, and sees it as his job to know the culture and the things that are shaping that culture in order to help his church enter that culture effectively

>> In the introdution, question two had a great little checklist that can help be a diagnostic for some church leaders

>> p.22 "The emerging church is a growing, loosely connected movement of primarily young pastors who are glad to see the end of modernity and are seeking to function as missionaries who bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to emerging and postmodern cultures"

>>AMEN!! Are you glad to see the end of modernity?!

>>p.23 "Will you proclaim a gospel of forgiveness, fulfillment or freedom?"

>>p. 47 "Over the years, I have become increasingly troubled by the frequency with which young pastors simly dismiss the New Testament teaching on church leadership and discipline, so that f four guys are drinking beer in a pub, they can call it a church...[I say] that sometimes a whore wears the same perfume as a wife, and it's no different with the bride of Christ."

>>p.48 (on homosexuality in the church) "It seemed odd that a male greeter who had likely had sex with a man before church chastised me for wearing a hat in church because I was disrespecitng God."

>>p. 59/60 Mark gives an example of his fine counselling skills. Buy the book for these two pages alone!

>>p. 67 on marrying people, "knowing that their marriage is for the gospel as much as the gospel is for their marriage."

>>p. 71 "I can honestly say it was the gayest thing I have ever been a part of." (referring to a church painting party)

>>p. 77 in response to the desires of some to have collective sermon preparation...like Doug Pagitt's book, Preaching Reimaging, "My people needed to hear from God's Word and not from each other in collective ignorance like some dumb chat room."

>>p. 78 "I decided that being coo, having good music, understanding postmodern epistemology, and welcoming all kinds of strange people into the church is essentially worthless if at the bedrock of the church anything other than a rigorous Jesus-centered biblical theology guides the mission of the church."

>>p. 83 on his church changing meeting locations, "In the move, we lost some of our least-committed people, as I was hoping we would."

>>p. 103 "As I studied the Bible, I found more warrant for a church led by unicorns than by majority vote."

>>p.112 "As people completed the [membership] class, they were encouraged to either sign up as members or leave the church and go elsewhere."

>>p.113 on giving "So we started asking members for annual pledges, tracked their giving, and contacted them if their giving was significantly below their pledge."

And finally, why I love Driscoll...

p.182/3:

When we started the church, I was full of pride, and by God's grace, I am now down to perhaps half a tank. I routinely critiqued the work of other men, particularly older men who had faithfully served Jesus be reaching modern and suburban types of people. It was typical young-buck-in-rutting-season folly.
But now that I've had a few years of ministry beatings, I am increasingly grateful for the Christian leaders whom Jesus is using even if they are considerably different from me.

If you are a church leader, paid or not, buy this book. Make your mission the gospel of Jesus Christ.

THAT IS IT!

This is my final opinion on Mark Driscoll....drumroll: I love the guy.
...pause...
Like he cares.
...pause...
I don't always agree with his statements, or with his apporaches, but I do agree with a huge stinking lot of what he is doing and how he is doing it. Why do I put this post up? basically because I have been wavering for three years with what to think about the pastor who I totally relate to, but is just so different than me at the same time. Finally, three things have cemented my thoughts:

1. He changes. His opinion on things 5 years ago is diferent than now. This gives me permission to be the same. So I can blog and not have to worry about it when my kids read it 3 years from now, because I am in process.

2. I just finished his new book. I am going to go through it on this blog. It has moved me.

3. The advertisements for the men's retreat at marshill seattle are posters with the picture of David carrying Goliath's head over his shoulder back home. That is what men's ministry should be about. The MEN in the Bible....

4. I know I only said three...but on Mark's blog today he put a whole post on Ulimate Fighting and had this line about why more men aren't in church:

So, I’ll just say that while young men are watching tough men compete, the reason they don’t go to most churches is because they could take the pastor and can’t respect a guy in a lemon-yellow sweater, sipping decaf and talking about his feelings.

Bring it.

You have to read this...

I came accross this article today on Mike King's blog (see Sidebar). The main points are thus:

How has this unfortunate situation come about?

1) We have been more focused on sin than the sinner.

2) We have been more concerned with creating a safe society than with making a positive impact on culture.

3) We have bought into the notion that we could effect a change upon society through politics.

4) We have opted for morality over the gospel.

5) We have become the self-appointed last line of defense that God doesn’t need and never asked for.

And the best line is:

Who told us to become the Moral Majority? Why was that the most important thing? If we were listening to Jesus, why wouldn’t we have become the Merciful Minority, infiltrating the world with God’s love?

You can read John Fischer's article here: The Separation of Church and Hate.

Illness and Production

So the family is mostly sick. Lj is getting over it, Heather is in the middle of it and Khobi is about to get it. I went two nights with 2 hours sleep this past week. Really feeling stupid - which is awkward when people ask you something really simple and you can't figure out what's going on. It's probably my deconstructionist philosophy slowed down that is most frustrating. I kind focus on things in a holistic sense and answer the question at the same time!!

That being said, I have been productive lately:

>> I preached in church last week on the latter parts of Mark 12. Used the term revolution frequently and feared that people would dismiss it as "that young pastor"...so I prayed that I would never lose my belief and passion in the revolutionary ways of Jesus Christ. You can listen to the sermon online at our church website (it will only be there for 6 weeks - so get it while it's hot!). Also, I referred people to two websites within my spreaching, The Simple Way and the Jesus Creed. I also told people to google Gamaliel the Elder so that they could understand where Jesus was putting Himself in the theological context of His day...wondering if anyone did that....AND I gave an NT Wright article about the Historical Jesus and Christian Theology from his website. Can you tell I was trying to make the sermon more than a 20 minute speech? Check it out!

lj - emerging theologian 2

Tonight, LJ is haveing a hard time falling back to sleep so we are looking for a picture of Jesus with a blue sash on the internet. We find one, but it's not exactly the one we are looking for. Then LJ explains his theology of salvation...

That Jesus is my savior...he's my favorite one...he's my savior. Blue Jesus is in my heart...walking around trying to find his friends. And his parents are going to come and pick him up.

Thank the Lord LJ isn't a Calvinist...then he'd be really screwed up...kidding...mostly.

NPC - CCC#4 - Leron Shults

It seems it is taking me quite a while to work through a lot of my thoughts that developed at the National Pastors Convention. That's good - dang good - because my church fronted dolla's (that's rap for a bunch of cash) to send us. So, of course, they hope it's somehow worth it.


The fourth presenter at the emerging critical concerns course was Leron Shults. I had never heard of him before, but he would be THE reason I would consider going to Bethel Seminary. He is really smart (his blog is here), but he helped me to further develop my beliefs about process salvationism (combined with what Campolo taught about Einsteinian physics...more on that much later) and he writes killer books. He's also just one more reason why I keep thinking it sure helps you to be emerging if you are Wesleyan...

From the titles of his books you who think I am a little too deep can see why I am going to be buying them when my book buying fast is over:
The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology
Reforming Theological Anthropology: After the Philosophical Turn to Relationality
The Faces of Forgiveness: Searching for Wholeness and Salvation
Reforming the Doctrine of God &
Transforming Spirituality: Integrating Theology and Psychology

So here's what I heard and learned and thought...

> His main point was to talk about Decentering the Renewal: the disturbing spirit in the emerging churches

>the emerging church must be driven by a centrifugal force (out of control)
>examples of Jerusalem against Antioch as major centers of the early church

>the natural response to loss of control is fear (my thoughts: is that what the Spirit of God does...instills the fear of God?)

>Acts 9:31 =

>the secret to church growth is the FEAR of the LORD (we should fear no other) and comfort...these two conditions lead to vulnerability.

>salvation: the reordering of a community because of the presence of the spirit of God. (my thoughts: not only does this help me explain process salvationsism, but it is also a commentary of communal salvation...which I beleive in but don't totally understand, yet.)

Challenges from the panel...

> our theological categories must change because they are based on theories of understanding which are no longer contemporary.

> my notes: this is the massive underlying truth about the emerging movement - the old ways of knowing are leaving because the things that people believed were true are simply not anymore. It's very similar to the times when they found that the world is not flat...only now we are finding that the universe is not infinite, just curved. Funny thing is...some church leaders think that this is a load of crap, a fad. I wonder if that's what they thought when they suppressed Galileo for saying the earth wasn't the center of the universe...

Harambee this summer

Through a wildly God-ordained series of events, our high school group is following God's lead on a summer missions trip to Harambee Ministries in Pasedena, to serve God in the greater LA region.

It's so ffunny how, no matter how hard I seem to try, God gets His way and always has a GOOD way. So, is this a conincidence (LACY FOX!), nope, I don't think so. But I could be 90% wrong.

Either way, I think I might be more excited about this missions trip than the previous two (and I get pretty worked up about student missions) for a couple reasons:

1. We are not going in with YouthWorks. I love, absolutely love, YouthWorks, but we sensed God leading us to go it a little more on our own, so we are partnering with local organizations and just going in. This makes me nervous because I will really need to have a handle on things and I will need the best possible leaders.

2. We are going to LA, the furtherst this group has gone (since the South Tremont days...inside joke alert) since over a decade ago when they went to Mexico with Oregon City. This makes me nervous because of raising gas prices and long drives for my excellent leaders.

3. We get to meet and work with Rudy Carusco. I really love what he is about and the way he is engaging the emerging church in an urban setting, when so much of it seems to be happening to white suburbans...it's really a cool thing. This does not make me nervous.

So - all in all - this is really big....applications are due on Wednesday night.

ONLINE!

Heather finally did it! - she went ahead and called the company and got us the internet at home. Much kudos to here for holding out so long, though.

Now, I'll be taking bets for a pool to see how long before she sets up a blog. I don't think it will be long - and then the world will see (or the two or three people who actually read this) how Heather can rant with the best of them.

NPC - CCC#3

Doug Pagitt, an early leader in the emerging movement, presented third at the seminar. He opened with some nice remarks that I thought were humble, about how this isn't the "new cool thing" that should make all pastors feel guilty because they don't know what is going on. Also, Doug's presentation was the most informal and "anti-notes", he began with a video and explained how his feelings mirrored those expressed in the video. Here's some great stuff I gained from his time:

>> this whole thing has to be felt before it is thought

>> The culture and the gospel is inseparable - both for moderns and pomo's

>> we need to understand the reality of the world so that we can know the good news for it; this is a sublte difference from repackaging for relevance

>> Doug called himself a traditionalist...from the first century

>> He expressed a desire for a non-church-centric view of the kingdom of God (free from dogmatics and the "who's got the gospel" issues)

>> He also noted that the way that we form our beliefs is, in fact, a practice. This is where the real differences in modernism and postmodernity exist. Modernism neglects the fact that the medium of spiritual formation carries a large message - perhaps is the greater message.

Challenges from the panel...

>> a call was put out to a community who will form into a gathered worship group?

>> the relationship between Luke 4 (Jesus in Temple) and the beatitudes (Luke 6) was discussed

>> I thought that I cannot become a pastor who is just waiting for grandma to die so that we can have the keys to the car. And I know pastors my age who are like this - we need to go out and get our own car. And not PIMP it.

>> I thought of this also: I wonder how these relationships work and if I need to read some on this:

Covenant/Kingdom Relationships

Abraham (all people) --------> Moses (Jews)
Jesus (kingdom) --------> Paul (church)

Where is that chart going? Is there a relationship? Can we learn from the Old Testament tales of the Jews in order to make our churches a better representation of the original ingredients?

Free for All

I'm on a new keyboard today and it's rather noisy...yesterday I baptized my keyboard with a Frapachino that a student bought me. That was frustrating.

Tonight, at youth group, we are having a Free for All (much like everyother youth pastor who is enamored with Rob Bell...Aaron Swank is partly right about me...). We are going to focus the questions on relationship issues.

During some worship times, we are going to use some visuals and questions that I have downloaded from Dropping Knowledge. We'll use these and talk about the role of questions in our relationships, especially with Jesus.

It should be a great night.

Here's an example of what we'll use for our prayers:

NPC - CCC#2

Ryan Bolger, (on the left; Gibbs on the right) a professor at Fuller, has recently published a new book, with Eddie Gibbs, called Emerging Churches. It is a scholastic survey of emerging movements around the US and the world that gives some definition to the movement and shows some of the areas that the church is emerging. I haven't read it. Here's what he had to say at the conference, with a smattering of some of my own thoughts...

>> going to a church, in our culture, evokes the same emotions that going to a gay bar did in the culture of 1990.

>> we do not need to gather the disgruntled, we need missionaries

>> belief: a person shouldn't have to cross cultures to find God.

>> new: the church today is toxic to spirituality; it is a different culture...we desire an indigineous congregation.

>> "post" churches:

*must overcome dualisms
- a truncated theology of either/or moving to both/and

*must overcome linearity
- "God is in a book"
- we are not forming our culture the way that our
culture does...we use words, our culture uses pictures

*must overcome body/mind dualisms
- Christianity is not about believing right things while not living right things.
- increased desire for holism

*overcome homogenity- God is NOT about conformity and control
- we want diversity and shared practices while not having to share theology
- success vs. faithfulness in measurement and evaluation systems

*overcome individualism- "my" to "His"

*overcome "my needs getting met" (fed)
- we are not economically driven

*overcome spectatorship-consuming vs. producing: the benefit is in the participation
-clergyvs. laity; noting relationships between hierarchical and network systems.

>>also, ryan brought up not speaking into a culture for the first three years, instead learning that culture...

Challenges from the panel...

>> we are a consumer culture if we are not thinking theologically
>> We are not all disgruntled; many of us just want the freedom to go beyond

MTV saved my life

For various reasons, MTV has saved my life. Most recently, it is the advent of the broadband online channel called MTV Overdrive. I have an insaitable desire for Coldplay songs right now, and Overdirve allows me to get all the music I want and save my allowance at the same time!!

God bless MTV!

ps. comments that blast me for praying for God's blessings on MTV are more than welcome. That is definitely a theological discussion that I want to have!

NPC - CCC#1

National Pastors Convention - Critical Concerns Course #1

I attended 8 hours worth of a critical concerns course on the emerging movement as published by Zondervan (all the panel was Zondervan authors...sounds fishy...) called The Emerging Church: Theology and Practice, Multiple Perspectives on the Issues with Ryan Bolger, John Burke, Tony Jones, Dan Kimball, Scot McKnight, Doug Pagitt, LeRon Schults.

I am going to add a few of their blogs on the sidebar next time I work on that stuff. For now I will link to each of them and to the name, which takes you to the NPC site and gives bios on each presenter. They all took turns presenting for 30 minutes, then were commented/challenged by the others and then there was audience questions (which actually didn't happen nearly enough in my opinion). Tony JOnes was the MC and he made sure to note at the beginning the obviousness of Zondrevan's control of the voices and that the theological discussions will accompany the practical discussions.

Up first...and remember these are just my notes/thoughts/questions...they may or may not be based in your reality...


Dan Kimball

>> emerging from exploring methodology lead to exploring theology * and not being afraid to do so...

>> Judges 2:11 - emerging should never finish; now that I look that up, I'm not sure what that had to do with anything...

>> When we rethink ecclesiology we end up rethinking theology.

methods >>> ecclesiology >>> theology

>> taking the "mental" out of fundamental...you can become comfrotable in being a fundamentalist without becoming a FUNDAMENTALIST!

>> we need correction, rediscovery, reevaluation and change - by approaching Scripture with each of certainty, humility and mystery...of which the former is emphasized for moderns and the latter for postmoderns - and both can never get enough of the middle one.

>> I had an interesting thought that the former attacks on missionaries for contextualizing the gospel (like Hudson Taylor dressing in asian clothing) are not being leveled at emerging. I wonder if that is because instead of us having to go to the mission field, the mission field has come to us...

Challenges from the panel...

>> there was a challenge to change the attitude owards fundamentals; not just assume fewer fundamentals...which seems to be a fair assesment of much that is emerging...

>> many people misunderstand the emerging because they think that their understanding is an absolute fundamental - which negates church history...which is so dang true...

>> I saw a pastor playing solitaire on his computer...I wondered if his church footed the bill for him to be at the this conference. Then I got angry at all senior pastors who are dismissing the emerging movement. Then I recommited myself to not lose my flame...I am a Christian and I will not become the kind of Christian they are....and they know who they are...don't worry, if you are reading this blog it is very likely you are not them...

>> Finally, I came to the conclusion that if we are going to go ahead with a church within a church model of reaching the emerging culture (and allowing us to follow Jesus in the way that He is calling us) then the key question will be:

Are we desperate enough to allow for theological diversity?

National Pastors Convention

SO...at the end of February I went to the national pastor's convention in San Diego. I am going to post a bunch of my notes, seminars and such, and thoughts from the various things - but as individual posts, so that converstaions can be made about them individually...so go ahead and comment on the things I write. But to start, here's a quick list of the highlights of the week for me...

*when the guy swore at me as we were landing in SD and then wanted to know what denomination I am in...
*tijuana and bartering, I'm still wondering if I should have stopped in at the dentist...
*hot tub...
*palm trees...
*beautiful hotel...
*watching John park...
*eating till I puked in my mouth...
*chocolate mocha macciatos...

Ya Think!

I am just walking to get my coffee this morning and I wonder...how does it feel to muslims when we hold "crusades" and get all excited about them and gather together and all.

I bet it would feel the same as if an islamic organization was holding an event at the local arena and called it a jihad.

Dang. Looks like we might want to consider stopping using the word crusade.

Slowwwww Dowwwwnnnn

This morning Heather says I might need to slow down. She says a 2 month old, a toothache, a canker sore, a new youth leadership team, planning a missions trip, planning our big spring retreat (dare 2 Share this year), and introducing the concepts of a new congregation to our church might be a little much. Oh yeah, and my little boy is sick too.

So I come into the office today with the intention of moving slower. Spending some time praying - but needed some prompting.

Here's my prompts (icons):

Dropping Knowledge

World Photo contest

Pray away.

Practicing Passion, Kenda Creasy Dean

Without a doubt, this book has become the most important book in youth ministry according to me. Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church by Kenda Creasy Dean is a must read for anyone who is in ministry with youth in a church setting. Creasy Dean is a professor at Princeton and an ordained minister in the Methodist church. She has also founded the Institute for Youth Ministry at Princeton, which really loves youth workers. That all being said the book is not easy. I read the introduction three times just to make sure that I understood what was going on - and it's not because of the author's writing skills, it is because of the immense amount of thought that went into this book on youth ministry. For many of us youth minisiters the deepest book we have ever read is "58 games involving vaseline" - this is a far cry from such fodder. Dean also uses a lot of commas, and I love using commas - I really think it's a sign of the genius to be able to hold more than one thought at a time.

I loved reading a youth ministry book from a methodist view, especially since I am working now in the Evangelical Church of North America and finding myself drawn to Weslyan theology. Further, the book relies heavily on the work of Jurgen Moltman, who is a practial theologian I first encountered through Tony Jones' blog. Moltman's writings, at least the parts I understand, resonate with me. I find myself thinking I might be a Wesleyan/Pratical Theologian, but I am as yet unsure of that that means.

Here are some killer quotes, and I'll try not to break any copyright laws because there are a lot of killer quotes, and some intriguing questions:


p.2 "Adolescents do not want to suffer, but they do desperately want to love something worthy of suffering, and to be so loved."

p.4 Drawing from the Wesley brothers: "God's willing vulnerability in the self-giving love of the Incarnation was a divine posture culminating in death on the cross, not synonymus with it."

p.9 "For youth, ridding faith of radicalness and transcendence amounted to castration, and rendered Christianity impotent for reordering the self. With nothing left 'to die for' in Christian teaching, it became increasingly unclear whether or not Chirstianity offered something worth living for. Mainline churches began to lose track of faith's claim on identity and, consequently, on youth in the process of identity formation. Without a truth capable of transcending lesser commitments of the self, Christianity became just another side dish in the postmodern cafeteria of personal choice."

Do we "set aside" youth ministry for pragmatism or do we "set apart" youth ministry for holiness?

p.11 Quoting a teen: "Adolescence is, lik, you know, the human condition on steroids."

p. 26 Quoting Bonhoeffer: "The future of the church does not depend on youth but only on Jesus Christ. The task of young people is not reorganization of the church but listening to God's Word; the church's task is not the conquest of young people, but the teaching of the Gospel."

p.48 (note: Mimesis, a greek word, is like imitating, but is more. According to Creasy Dean, mimesis not only imitates from imagination but also enacts, embodies and becomes. It grafts one through imitation?) "Mimesis of Jesus Christ does not create 'good teenagers' or 'wholesome youth programs.' It creates radicals and prophets - people who reveal the root of cultural deceits with the searchlight of Christ's love, and who unmask avaice, violence, rivalry, and smallness..."

Are you merely imitating?

p.61 "What is new for postmodern youth is the growing assumption that this fluctuating self is normative; maturity is no longer necessarily a goal of adolescence...(p.85)...There is little doubt that plural selves are a fact of contemporary life, useful for navigating the multiple roles required by postmodern culture."

p.73 "If it stays it must be true."

p.105 "The postmodern inclination to conceptualize truth in terms of paradox - 'both/and' rather than 'either/or' - embraces the three persons of the Trinity as both the source of estatic unity and the source of differentiated identity...

p.141 has a picture depicting the Trinitarian self in light of the plural self expressed by the postmodern worldview. Buy the book and memorize this picture.

p.199 Quoting Will Willimon: " 'When we looked at 'weird,' remembers Willimon, 'we wanted to take it apart, figure it out, explain it. When today's kids look at 'weird,' they want to enjoy it.' "

p.250 Quoting Sam George: "Ministry [to youth] in terrorculture will call for a radical discipleship."

p.254 "The adolescent transformed by God's passion cannot suppress it or 'tone it down' without comprimising the estatic reach of the Holy Spirit. This young person discovers that Christ has made her into someone capable of toppling some of society's most cherished ideals, beyond the Christian community and even with in it...Conformity, therefore, is never the outcome of Christian practice; oddity is the outcome of Christian practice."

Most wonderful time of year

I love this time of year.

Spring is coming, the rain is relenting. DJ Manuel is playing on the media player. The NBA is heating up, Shaq is on TNT tonight at 5 PST, which I also love. NFL football is over and the arena stuff is on TV, which is way more entertaining...and baseball hasn't started, so espn has to give us NHL highlights that actually mean something - and talk for hours on end about Gretzky's (who should be known as the greatest hockey player in history, not just as a current coach) wife gambling on sports through the south philly/jersey organized crime ring.

Ahh....I love this time of year.

Also, I love sports and I love the arts.

And I don't care if that is a contradiction.

Driscoll, Driscool, Driscol

While I have no idea how to spell his name, Mark Driscoll has been stirring up quite a storm since he has decided to try his hand at blogging.

I have talked of my differences with Driscoll (my best guess at the spelling) on this blog before, he really took the cake when I listened to a sermon by him in which he said all methodism is plainly stupid. It takes a lot of something to dismantle a whole number of denominations, including my own, based on your own interpretations of Scripture. So now he has been blogging a bit and is throughly weird in the way he contexts each post with a meeting with a well known Christian. I don't even know what to think of that

Now, Mark has GONE OFF! on several people associated with the Emergent organization, especially Padgitt and McClaren. Both of these men I have disagreements with theologically, but from both of these men I have learned. But Driscoll has gotten rather out of hand and is being, in my judgment, unkind.

Cuss all you want Mark, but it doesn't make you any cooler to me. In the words of a recent PBS documentary on the punk music scene, "It's easy to say %$@*-(#&, but it's way harder to get up and do something." So, don't give me empty and sarcastic and ignorant words. It's a waste.

Nonetheless, I am adding a link to Driscoll on the right and adding a link to a anti-emergent (and anti-Rick Warren) site, because I think it's good to not walk around blindly.

Blue Like Jazz

I have just recently finished don Miller's book, Blue Like Jazz and am kicking myself for not reading it earlier. I got a signed copy "with love" and it is now a really treasured book to me. You can get your own signed copy if you buy it directly from his website, where you can also get the images from the book. And by images, I mean cartoons.

Like Phillip Yancey, I drink up the writing of Miller, as he is a writer who writes of theology. As opposed to other authors, who are theologians who theologize about writing. If that makes no sense, think of it this way, Miller's book is easy to read, but will challenge and convict you if you allow the Spirit to work in your heart through it.

Here are some quotes and questions that affected me:

p.2 "the chasm that separated me from God was as deep as wealth and as wide as fashion."

What's your chasm?

p. 15 "there was this blowhard preacher talking about how television rots your brain. He said that when we are watching television our minds are working no harder than when we are sleeping. I thought that sounded heavenly. I bought one that afternoon."

p. 20 "I AM THE PROBLEM."

p. 91 the interaction about worshipping the golden calf might be the best paragraph ever written.

p. 135 "So we started praying every week that God would teach us to live missoinal lives, to notice people who needed to be loved."

So Kimball says that we need to pray missionary prayers - do you have any idea what that sounds like?

Home and Native Land

So I learned last night flipping through watching Hardball on CNBC that Paul Martin had conceded the Canadian election to Stephen Harper. My first thought was, what a normal name for a leader - and my is he good looking! Easily the best looking Canadian leader since Sheila Copps and Pierre Trudeau. It's also heartwarming to see the NDP resurging. Nice in a "Yes to Nuclear Power" way, not in a "Shoot my .22 at the rockets over the prairies" way.

He's promising policy over pizzaz and is expected to improve international relationships (with the USAmericans especially) and bring the course of the country rightward, which, I think, is an improvement on the Liberal party's last 13 years. Not that I hope Canada becomes like Puerto Rico or Vigin Islands - I just hope they stop making ridiculous policy reforms that make Canada look like more of an experiment than a country.

Mostly, though, I hope for a better exchange rate: paying off my student loans is easier that way!!

Collegians

This is a special post for the sunday night college group!

Here's a link to the article that I want us all to read through:

Donald Miller, The Campus Confession Booth

Read it and we'll talk about it on Sunday night. Be sure to know that I don't want to go and set up a confession booth at Reed College or at LBCC or anywhere for that matter. Don't look at this as a programming option, rather, consider their creativity in ministering to their community - then ask:

What does it mean for us to minister creatively to our Albany? our world?

The eagle lands sunday night at 7:30, reading the last half of the chapter from the Velvet Elvis also.

New Links

I've found a plethora of new blogs and links that you want to check out:

Some of which will make the permanent blog roll on the side bar:

Here they are:

ABC News Report on Emerging Church Trend from Andrew Jones

Mark Driscoll blogs

Scott Plumley - whose blog is turning into a tribute to his wife...

McAnulty Adventures - a feally funny blog about living in a house full of men in tangent.

Rob Buhl - YP at north abany community
church
Enjoy!

Lj - emerging theologian

my son visits me today...

lj: what are you doing daddy?

me: looking at some films to help people learn to follow Jesus.

lj: oh

me: do you follow Jesus?

lj: yes!

me: what kind of a difference does that make in your life?

lj: My life is the blue one.

Christmas Eve

This is my attempt to debunk the rumors:

WE launched 208 super balls into the air during the 6 pm Christmas eve service. Way more than the rumored 100.

Just kidding, of course. but you can listen to my teaching on the giving joy this past Christmas by going to the South Albany Community Church website and listening in.

It will only be up for a few weeks, after that it is shuffled off - so check now!!

Listen here

You Don't Own ME!

I am a

Yet, I reserve the right to not be defined by emergent.

Emergent is a great organization that can help people, pastors and leaders who are moving in that direction. The problem comes when they become, usualy unintentionally, like a denomination. ("I belong to emergent").

but if that's our biggest problem...we're blessed. I say that because this kind of a problem encourages conversation, and conversations is what this is all about.

For me, being emerging used to be about an agenda, or "tricks" to get people to connect to God. Nowadays (and yes, that is the first time I have ever used that word) it's more about thinking theologically for a postmodern culture that I live in, instead of programming our way to a bigger church.

This is definitely not the end of the reorientation, though.

Love

I have a commitment to not deleting things that I say online. If I have the stupidity to say it, then I have to own it.

However, I have a higher commitment to some people than my commitment to myself. And when one of these people asks me to delete a post - I have to decide who I serve - myself or them. This is the primary question of a love relationship.

Love means choosing someone else, instead of yourself.

If the answer isn't them, then I have to ask where's the love? Do I love my own (sometimes extreme) commitments? Or, do I love people?

So a post has been deleted on the reorient.

Perhaps more will be...we'll have to see how I feel about all of that.

Tony Jones

If you are a regular reader, then you know that Tony Jones is a writer and leader who I really appreciate. His books on Postmodern Youth Ministry and Soul Shaper were not only informative for me, but also liberating.
Tony is a gracious man who returns emails - not only to me but to other regular youth pastors who are trying to muck through the postmodern shift that is happening all around us. He takes time for people and listens very well.
Tony is also sure of what he believes but holds his convictions separate from those of Emergent the organization because of the responsiblity he feels as the director of the organization that calls itself a relationship.
It seems that, because of his relentless commitment to the question being of more worth than the answer, and the journey of more worth than the destination, he comes under frequent attack by those who seem to be in fear of losing their faith to the "evil emergent." Just browse through the comments in his blog (which is way to smart for most of the haters to understand) and you'll see what I mean.

In light of all this - and as a favour (guilty - Canadian!) to Emergent - I have fashioned the following job description for Tony Jones, director of Emergent.

The Emergent Director/Coordinator will:

*Always have to be changing the title of his postition, because people will always be complaining about it, all the while undergoing constant criticism of your every word, action and thought.

*Work closely with the extended Emergent board and inform them of the number of complaints being lodged anonymously on blogs, all the while undergoing constant criticism of your every word, action and thought.

*Return emails, press requests, phone calls and other communications with various people from supporters to haters,all the while undergoing constant criticism of your every word, action and thought.

*Make decisions about events and gatherings in order to further the conversation and relationship that is emergent, all the while undergoing constant criticism of your every word, action and thought.

*Put up with people trying to change the name of emergent to something else,all the while undergoing constant criticism of your every word, action and thought.

*Connect with grassroots level leaders who are living amongst the realities that emergent can help navigate, all the while undergoing constant criticism of your every word, action and thought.

*Keep a healthly sense of humor or go insane because all the while the director/coordinator will be undergoing constant criticism of every word, action and thought.

In the words of Jim Carey, "May you have a Christity Christ Christ Christmas!"

Winston

My father in law is one of the wisest people I know. He is a minister at large for an "international" ministry called Believer's Dynamics.

Anyways - he preaches as good as you breathe and he has a website and you can listen to his sermons on it - so I am linking to it to generate a little more traffic for him and to bless you with some killer sermons.

Go ahead - click it up!!

Also - it's a minsitry that is totally supported by people's financial support - so this Christmas - why don't you support?

Winston Thurton

SACC is genius

So with all the debate that is absolutely raging about the church services on Christmas issue - I really think that our church is doing something wise.

We are hosting 3 worship services, 2 on sat night and one on sun morning that are all similar but different so that people could go to just one, or two or three if they really wanted a good seat in heaven. There's no child care - they are all family oriented and will pack the sanctuary out - but it keeps our church from pitting family against church.

Not that other ideas are horrible or anything. I just think our idea really works.

So go ahead - tell people you follow the South Albany model. Jesus will love you more if you do!

Khobi

Sorry for the recent silence, had a baby - not sleeping - drinking lots of coffee.

Check back soon for a rant on tithing.

Velvet Elvis

I have just finished reading Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell for the second time. The first time I devoured it in one night, but now I have grinded through it a little more so that it makes more sense.

I have bought 4 more copies and given them away. I can see McLaren's influence and clearly appreciate Bell's presentation of the Redemptive Movement Hermeneutic in a variety of context. There are moments and words that everyone should struggle with - which makes this book valuable for your oreintation.

Here's some quotes and questions:

p.21 "Jesus exposes us to reality at its rawest."

Can you be a follower of Jesus and not be real? Is fake the root of all sin?

p.28 "...brickianity..."

Are you on a journey or are you building a fortress?

p.33 quoting Sean Penn, "The mystery is the truth."

p.83 "Jesus is the arrangement. Jesus is the design. Jesus is the intelligence. For a Christian, Jesus' teachings aren't to be followed because they are a nice way to live a moral life. They are to be followed because they are the best possible insight into how the world really works. They teach us how things are."

How does Jesus' life on earth interact with the effect of sin on humanity?

p.85 "That is why it is impossible for a Christian to have a secular job. If you follow Jesus and you are doing what you do in his name, then it is no longer secular work; it's sacred. You are there; God is there. The difference is our awareness."

Are you moving slow enough to be aware? What are you missing in your speed? Are you addicted to speed and shallow? What are you scared of?

p.120 "I say the system has to be changed. It has to be destoryed and replaced not with another system but with an entirely new way of life."

p.165 "I am learning that the church is at its best when it gives itself away."

p.169 "The call of Jesus goes in the other direction. It's about making our live more difficult. It is going out of our way to be more generous and disciplined and loving and free. It is refusing to escape and become numb to and check out of this broken, fractured world."

Are you blessed?


You've got to read this book. Move.

A New Day

A new feature will be found in the reOrient!

As is my custom - I post a bunch of compelling quotes in order that you can see what I am thinking about.

Now: I am going to try to include some questions that ask what the next step is. I am sensing that in my interaction with the whole imergent thing (with an "i" on purpose) I am ready to start creating instead of just learning.

This is just a step in that direction.

May the progressions continue.

Milk Carton: My blog

So, I'm not posting as much as I should. It's a sign that I am getting a little overwhelmed.

Heather is having the baby any time in the new couple weeks, days, whatever.

We are planning 3 unique, yet interconnected Christmas Eve/Morning Services - a family service hosted by Scott and I - that's it - a contemplative 11'o'clocker - and a normal sunday service that I won't have to do much at.

We are moving toward planting a new congregation within our context.

My personal small group is bustling.

I am trying to recruit more leaders for Driven HS Ministry.

Oh yeah - and I'm drinking a lot of coffee.

Emerging?

We are at the point now where we are talking about creating a new congregation withing the context of South Albany Community Church. Just talking - but talking for real.

We are at the point where we have no desire to be "emergent". Rather, we want to be more than what we are. We want to find what is just past what we have right now. We want to see what happens when we let the restless evangelicals push the envelopes that they have been stuck in for so long.

Thing is - this is what makes us more emergent than ever before. It strikes me that, no matter if we start a new emerging service or not - I am what I am. The way I understand the gospel, the way I live in the way of Jesus, the context of my conversations, my approach to my understanding of all theology is different. And the modern church (read: my denomination) is not creating new categories other than fear of postmodernity.

So, we are trying to engage conversation with those who are like us - and in leadership positions - and there ain't many around Albany, Oregon. Many churches are sticking with status quo, but that just isn't what I want to tell Jesus I did with my life.

So we are looking outside of our town to help us engage the conversation - with the hope of finding a true (Albanian) expression of being a missional congregation. Right now we are answering a bunch of questions found in Kimball's book Emerging Worship. But we are purposely avoiding the chapters on ideas and common values in emerging churches. I know them. We know them. But the way that we have been trained tells us to model and to copy (pragmatism) - but we are refusing.

In that light - I read this quote last night and it really speaks to where we're at right now. It's an exciting time.

We need to recognize this and understand this. It is not dependent on people coming to our building and sitting in our meeting. After we think through the other building blocks, we can begin to design a worship gathering. To do this backwards is dangerous and will ultimately produce consumer-Christians who 'go to church' (a worship service), are not engaged in the mission, and don't see themselves as the church.
You may say, 'We know our mission isn't to start a worship service.' You need to probe and ask if you really do know that. What comes to your mind when you imagine 'success'? Is it a view of people all gathered in a worship service you have created? Or is it a view of a community of worshipers being missionaries in their world, being a part of community in smaller settings, and then coming together for a worshi pgathering? There is a huge difference between the two! Probably what comes to your mind and heart first is what you are building on.
-Dan Kimball, Emerging Worship, p.33/34

Death by Caffeine

It would take 146.02 cups of Brewed Coffee to put you down.

This just in from the death and coffee webpage - Death by Caffeine. This is funny, because part of my observation of Ramadan was to have no coffee. None. And I really, really like it. So, afterwards, when my lovely wife brought me a Dutch Bros. - it made my work day go by really fast.

Really, really fast.

Also - she found my glasses yesterday. So if I haven't seen you in a while I will now.

And - the final random note: Kelsey B. is the best.

Mad Props in the Reorient

I found this via bob.blog (now on typepad!) and ran it through on the reorient.

This is the reorient if Aaron Swank wrote it all.

reorient'n

Just a warning...there may be some cussing in there, I really don't know what half of it says. So, if there is, don't read it!

LAter-
James <><

Erwin McManus, The Barbarian Way

I just recently picked up this book and read it in two nights. Nothing like a hip small book with huge print and large margins. I really really reccommend this book. To everyone. It's not preachy or anything, and gives it real, talking about what I dream of the students in the Driven youth becoming and staying.

Oh God, may they not become domesticated.

Here's some tastebuds:

p.5 "Thje tribe of Jesus, above all people, should rightly carry the banner, 'Forward'."

p.15 "A barbarian invasion is taking place even right now. They are coming from the four corners of the the earth and they are numbered among the unlikely...those who are most religious will be most offended and indignant."

p.43 "For years I have made it my mission to destroy the influence of the Christian cliche 'The safest place to be is in the center of the will of God'"

p.45 "God would never choose for us safety at the cost of significance."

p.77 "You could put a suit on me, but underneath there would always be a savage."

There's lots of other stuff, ideas for new tattoos, really great understandings of Scripture, Nathaniel, Jephthah, and more.

Go. Now. But the book and read it. Trust me, the biggest books on my shelf are not the best. This book is more proof of that.

Thirty Hour Famine

This weekend we are leading our students in the experience of the 30 hour famine. I love this weekend because it creates a way for the students to do something about something that they, and God, hate; world hunger.

We have some passionate students about homelessness and poverty and hunger and addiction and... The biggest thing is that they don't see it as a complicated problem. They just see it as a place to make the world more like God dreams of.

I see a huge problem. I see the way that extreme poverty, lack of education, racism/predjudice, hopelessness, family cycles are all working together to create this massive problem. It's this kind of a huge problem that paralyzes a lot of people. There are students in Driven (the HS ministry at SACC) who are paralyzed. And then this feeling produces guilt - why am I doing nothing? why am I not doing enough? how can God love me when I am paralyzed?

This huge problem also shows it's ugly head when people turn away from following Jesus alltogether. I don't understand the Trinity. I see too much hypocrasy. I don't fit in.

All of these, in both the case of world hunger and in the case of following Jesus, are (as far as I see) are miss-focused excuses. Focusing on the problem - oparalyzes people.

The challenge then, for leaders, is to help people move their focus to the good and not the bad.

To stand for something, instead of against something.

May God bless the Famine. In Albany and in the world.

I should have known...

Wild Weekend.

I need to post on:
Ramadan
Meeting people who are breaking into the youth house wearing your jacket
&
Thirty Hour Famine

But right now, I want to point out some cool stuff. I have created some little links on the right hand side that I learned about from Bob up in Portland, whose link is also on the side.

One of the links tells me what key words people are using to search and finding my blog.

Here's the latest smattering. It's funny.

canadian in cuba
kenda creasy dean (which reminds me, I'm almost done Practicing Passion. Possibly the greatest youth ministry book in the world for me right now.)
rob bell mars hill
church sluts
learning about when people laugh at you and not with you
sluts of all kind


As you can see....some people (last search) are coming to the reorientation looking for something a little different.

!

reorient reader: You are Getting Stupider Every Time You Are Here.

Well, unfortunately, it might be true. The more you are goofing around on your computer, the lower your IQ is going. So, in theory, the more you are here, the dumber you are getting. Click on the title link for the news story.

I love IQ. I love it because I love to see the way that people talk about it. I love to ask people what there's is and I don't really care what the number is - I find it interesting when people are really excited about their number. High or low, whatever. I love when people ask me my number and there number is higher, but they are complete morons. I find it revealing to me as a warning not to place my self worth anywhere but on Jesus' inherent worth given to creation, in His Image.

I think the idol of finding self-worth in smarts, good grades, graduating high school is wildly prevalent in our culture. People look at me like I am crazy when I talk about my educational dreams for LJ - I hope he follow God's call. HS? Ok, whatever. College? OK whatever.

However, I don't endorse the, "I'm dropping out of high school so that I can go to Africa and be a missionary!" Unless it is surely God's call (which He has made crazier calls), then the 14 year old in Africa is just another crying mouth to feed. One without a decent education.

So if you are going to be stupid. At least be stupid here.

*This rant has been inspired by Irwin McManus' teaching at 722 in Atlanta from last week.

Canadian

If you are a frequent reader of the reorientation then you already know I am a Canadian living in America. Basically that means two things:

1. I can go to Cube and smoke all the cigars I want. However, I don't like Castro (I mean really, Che is just your Minister of Agriculture? - and then you leave him hanging in Bolivia? COme on!) and I don't smoke cigars. So that one is a bit of a wash.

2. I have the priviledge of riding out the storm of being the butt of jokes that Americans love to tell. Thing is, many of them are stinking funny. It's only annoying when people actually tell me I'm talking "wrong". Honestly, I'm not going to get a new accent - it's been 6 years I've lived in the USAmericas and I still talk "wrong". So, most people are not haters - they are genuinely funny.

All of this, because I got this list in an email from Kayla, and I thought it would be fun to post. I laughed out loud. Feel free to do so also, especially if you are in a public place - it always makes people wonder.

26 Signs Showing You Might Be Canadian

1. You're not offended by the term "HOMO MILK".
2. You understand the phrase "Could you pass me a serviette, I just dropped my poutine, on the chesterfield."
3. You eat chocolate bars, not candy bars.
4. You drink Pop, not Soda.
5. You know that a Mickey and 24's mean, "party at the camp,eh!!!"
6. You don't care about the fuss with Cuba. It's a cheap place to go for your holidays, with good cigars and no Americans.
7. You know that a pike is a type of fish, not part of a highway.
8. You drive on a highway, not a freeway.
9. You have Canadian Tire money in your kitchen drawers.
10. You know that Casey and Finnegan were not part of a Celtic musical group
11. You get excited whenever an American television show mentions Canada.
12. You brag to Americans that; Shania Twain, Jim Carrey, Celine Dion & Mike Myers are Canadians.
13. You know that the C.E.O. of American Airlines is a Canadian!
14. You know what a touque is.
15. You design your Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
16. You know that the last letter of the English alphabet is always pronounced "Zed".
17. Your local newspaper covers the national news on 2 pages, but requires 6 pages for hockey.
18. You know that the four seasons mean: almost winter, winter, still winter and road work.
19. You know that when it's 25 degrees outside, it's a warm day.
20. You understand the Labatt Blue commercials.
21. You know how to pronounce and spell "Saskatchewan".
22. You perk up when you hear the theme song from 'Hockey Night in Canada'.
23. You are in grade 12, not the 12th grade.
24. "Eh?" is a very important part of your vocabulary, and is more polite than, "Huh?"
25. You actually understand these jokes, and forward them to all of your Canadian friends! Then you send them to your American friends just to confuse them!
26. You know that it is a Zedbra, not a zebra.

Reality

I hate the saying, "It's not a religion, it's a relationship."

I hate it because it's not an either/or; the two are not mutually exclusive.

Fifteen seconds ago I created my new saying:

It's not about religion or relationship. It's about reality.

Mission Shaped Church

Mad Props to TSK for the link to a free download of the book, Mission Shaped Church. You can click on the title and go get the download for yourself. It's from the Church of England, so it's in a decidedly U.K. context, but it has some very important principles and helps for futuring here in the USAmericas. Mainly because I see Europe, U.K., Canada as a little further ahead in the emerging postmodern shift.

The book is timely for me as we (SACC's leadership) are considering what it would look like to plant a new congregation (more than a new service, less than a church plant) that is missional and moves, thinks, connects, teaches in ways that are relevant to people who are living life in the new postmodern world.

So I finished the book this morning and wanted to put some killer quotes up:

"the existing parochial system alone is no longer able to fully deliver its underlying mission purpose. We need to recognize that a variety of intergrated missionary approaches is required." (xi)

"The core value of socitey has moved from 'progress' to 'choice'" (9)

"forms of Christian community that are homes of generous hospitality, places of challenging reconcilliation and centres of attentiveness to the living God." (13; quoted from Transmission Magazine article by Brother Samuel SSF

"Frequent causes of [church plant] failure included poor planning, leadership issues, inward-looking focus, cultural blindness, part-time leadership and lack of resources." (22)

"Ecclesiology is a subsection of the doctrine of mission." (24; quoted from George Carey in a 1989 presentation)

"Today's young people are of a different culture, not simply a different age." (79)

"It is not the Church of God that has a mission in the world, but the God of mission who has a Church in the world." (85; quoting Tim Dearborn in Beyond Duty)

Church Sluts

Honestly, this isn't completely my fault.

We're rolling in the Caddy south on I-5 after a day of emerging talk and Scott talks about a question he asked about wether people are married or just dating the church. It's a common metaphor about how people don't commit to a body. People, generally, commit to a style or a preacher or to convience. Rare are the people who commit to a body through thick and thin. Rare and wonderful.

So, then the conversation moves along the lines of the dating metaphor and I have an epiphany:

"So, the people who just go church to church in dating relationships, would those people be called 'church sluts'?'"

After we all recovered we kind of followed that line of thought and decided it probably wouldn't sell as a book but is a very true thing.

I think those who are in emerging contexts will need to address this because it is the sin of our modern western baby-boomer parents, and the effects will carry on for a couple of generations. How can church promiscuity be ministered to? I believe there must be a direct and authentic commitment to communtiy (not affinity; affinity deals with convience and friendships, community includes these but works through difference and inconvience because of authentic commitment) in a local context. There must be a commitment to a local body, which is commited to the individual believers.

I wonder if, in the future, we will look at church sluts (church-hopping, shopping for a church) as a terrible sickness that invaded the church.

Further, will blame be put on the Christians themselves, or on their leaders for making them what they are through their market driven church models?

Learning Party Review

On Saturday John, Scott and I participated in a learning party up in Seattle, hosted by the Church of the Apostles. It was a lot of theory and hard to get into the practical aspect.

The overall feature was how mainline denominations are emerging. That was interesting because there were several of us who are of a more evangelical persuasion there. There was also a Unitarian Universalist. I disagreed with most of what came out of his mouth.

For us here in Albany, it helped us to know and recognize that we will need framework (and to determine how framework is determined) and we will need to know our convictions, even if we hold them with humility, we do not endorse ignorance as a form of valuing questions.

Props to Bob Hyatt for his organization and participation. He came from a more evangelical perspective and was more like what we feel God calling us towards. So, it was a good day to help us define and a good day for networking within our staff and in our region.

Defeating Spam and other tastes

Just a few notes: I've added/deleted some links on the right due to new blogs I read and developing relationships and I've deleted some blogs that were dead.

Also, I've added word verification to blog comments. I'm just hating the spammers. Isn't there some terrorism law that we can use to get rid of them. Spammers are a part of the axis of evil.

I have a busy am today but later I'm going to try and post on:

* Learning Party at the church of the Apostles
* How God is leading our prayers considering a new ministry
* Consumer culture and Church Sluts

Learning Party

People laugh when I tell them I am going to an emerging learning party this weekend. I think it might sound too much like Tupperware or Avon. But that is what is happening on Saturday.

John, Scott and I are going to the Emerging Learning Party hosted by Church of the Apostles up in Seattle. Karen Ward is the leader there. I originally heard of it on Bob Hyatt's blog, and he is going to be a tour guide there. Bob was gracious enough a year ago to share with our church staff some important ideas and directions for us to consider engaging the emerging community here in Albany.

Shoud be and interesting day.

Having to explain this stuff (learning parties, tour guides, emerge) to the average person in my (baby boomer) church is just embarrassing.

Constantine

Watched Constantine super late las night - sweet movie - it was spiritual and dealt with a couple cool issues - like is suicide the unforgivable sin?

The effects and stuff are supposed to be scary, I guess. And it would be...if I wasn't so obsessed with a fascination that our culture has with spirituality.

The Core

Tommorrow,

I'm taking my two brand new and improved interns (called Driven Ministry Associates) to their first youth ministry training seminar up in Portland.

The two are called Lacy and Aaron, but neither actively blog. It's sad, really.

We'll be attending YS's THE CORE seminar, which I have never attended. Interesting.

OK - Later-

James <><

What a great Question

I really think questions are way better than answers. Questions show hearts. Questions reveal vulnerability.

Here's a question I got in an email from someone today:

It is said that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore, it is very hard to understand why there is such a mess about having the Ten Commandments on display or "In God We Trust" on our money and having God in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why don't we just tell the other 14% to Sit Down and SHUT UP!!!

Although there is no question mark at the end, I thought this was seeking somekind of a response.

But, in the fashion of the Rabbi, I will respond with other questions:

Does the Bible not teach that 100% of the demons believe in God? If so, why is there such a mess in hell?
Do you think God wants to be in the pledge of allegiance?
Why doesn't the 14% tell the 86% to 'sit down and SHUT UP'?

Who types this crap?

Spam Part Two

Just so that everyone knows. All spam here will be deleted. Each comment is forwarded to my email, so all spam will be caught.