ATF reflections

Here's some links to variuos reflections on Acquire the Fire on the weekend - and if you are an Albany HS'er be sure to check this thread on the Driven Forums.

Joyce

Fizzox

Brooke

Theresa

Add link to your in the comments if you've got'em!

Acquire the Fire

This past weekend I led the group up to PDX for a weekend Acquire the Fire conference.

ATF is run by Teen Mania ministries, and they do advertise the snot out of their products, but the weekend is the best I can get in the pacific northwest.

So it was a super weekend and many kids made new or renewed commitments to following Christ.

I don't have time know but I will post some links to reflections from students. Or, if you were there, then post your links in the comments here.

out like American Idol -

Church Marketing Sucks

Chruch Marketing Sucks is a website that is dedicated to making fun of churches that have spasm marketing campaigns. It is a major error the American church makes, mistaking evangelism and marketing for each other. It isn't even a site that says marketing is bad, it just points out how bad churches are at marketing.

I have blogged about this before, Christian Marketing Machine is Killing Kids, and I feel pretty passionate about it all.

So the quest for the reorienting church and Christian is, "How do we improve marketing while improving witness?" And, "What is the difference between the two?" And, "What are the results of bad marketing and/or bad witness?"

The Great Commission

After further reflection, I think the last post was a bit of a rant, but I am revisiting this thought day after day. I was reading last night, a book that I will definitely post on, and it asked the question, "how are postmoderns to fulfill the gospel?" And I couldn't help but deconstruct that thinking into asking why the word fulfill is used? I think the emerging church and its leaders must ask some big questions about the great commission, especially in light of the reforming of the gospel and re-understanding of salvation.


Is the great commission a task or a way of life? Are we to "do", "be", or something else with the great commission?

Will the great commission ever end, or will it continue in eternity?

I contend that the GC is a way of life. The kingdom of God is now and we are to be disciples. Disciples who make other disciples. Sorry, no mention of converts there. But, beyond this, if I beleive that the GC calls us to a lifestyle of making disciples, then I have to believe that this kind of activity goes on for eternity in heaven/new earth.


So, as a way of life, and not as a task, the GC will not be the prevailing theme of the emerging church, yet disciples, and converts (and yes that word is problematic also) will become.

So, go ahead and take it off your church letterhead, because no body is going to care about your task anymore. Just help people become

The Commission

What has become known as the Great Comission or, in Sonlife circles, the Everyday Comission does not need to be fulfilled.

I spent last night reading and working thorugh Robert Colemans' The Master Plan of Evanagelsim and grew increasingly concerned that modern American Christianity see Matthew 28:18-20 as something to be fulfilled.

It is, I believe, way closer to the truth to see Matthew 28:18-20 as a way to live. The goal is not world evangelism. World evangelism comes when people are living GC lifestyles. World evangelism is a by-product, not the goal. The goal is holy living (has anyone else noticed how Wesleyan I am becoming?). Connection to God. Repentance. Obedience.

So, people, please stop witnessing to people with hopes that Christ will come back if we just tell everyone about Jesus. That's stupid.

Just live. And be the witness. People don't need another prescription plan, they need to see Jesus - so ask yourself the question, as I am, where is Jesus seen in you?

Confession

I've been mulling this one over for a while. The use of the internet as a neo-confessional amazes me. And I think I am making some connections.

I believe the future holds a return to parish style ministry. Where I am not the youth pastor at South Albany Community Church, but I am the youth pastor from the south side of Albany. I live in and minister in the community. This, of course, requires huge institutional changes, the biggest of which is measurements of success, but that is a huge digression.

In conjunction with this return to parish style ministry, I think the present holds a revolution of confession. The glossed over stainless steel of modernism has been found wanting and the "next" want to see what the dirt under the concrete looks like. And they want to be comfortable in it. Together.

So, here's a remarkable website involving confessions: PostSecrets.




Confession make us weak. And that...

Passover

This past week we did a passover simulation at Traffic, the worship ministry of Driven High School Ministries (a ministry of South Albany Community Church, a memeber church in the Evangelical Church of North America...been working on my licensing, is it obvious?)

So it was one of the best nights of worhsip I've ever been in. We did an intergrated teaching with pizza and communion with twix and coke. It was one of those nights where it just seemed like everyone was there, really engaged. And then we ended up with some really worthwhile commitment times.

Tommorrow, the actual day for the passover (according to the catholic calander) I am celebrating the Seder with my small group. I've never done it and I am the small group leader...should be interesting.

It would be interesting to do a Biblical study on food and worship: is eating worship?

Shalom - (aren't we all in the mood?)

Terri Whoever

So there's all this buzz about Teri Whoever and wether or not they shoudl pull out her feeding tube.

Secret: I really can't car less.

It's so funny what can happen when the media controlled america goes out and starts reporting on a story that really isn't big news, and the country gets all worked up on it.

Honestly, my life doesn't change either way on this one.

So, go buy the latest green day album and get over it. She lives, she dies, two months later no one will remember her name.


this post brought to you by James' sympathy black hole.

Lent

I began Lent last night to identify with my Eastern Orthodox brothers.

In the middle of this over busy time (Good Friday services, Easter preparations, licensing work, missions trip organization), I'm looking for Lent to help me to move slowly and intentionaly.

No fancy mystery or interesting posts to look forward to. Just simple.

Becoming a real Pastor!

I have been working on my licensing for our denominational credentials and it occurs to me - how is this training helping me to become a minister in a postmodern generation.

I don't think the whole church will engage the emerging world until the educational institutions, including boards of ministry, are turned in that direction.

This is the reasons the western church is always a few years behind the culture - we are so deathly afraid of heresy that we end up Amish. Is heresy really the ultimate evil?

nope. The easter bunny may be though.


Also - Eastern Orthodox lent starts today. Gentlemen, start your engines.

Go to church

This is a special present for my dad - he always wanted this - you can click on the title link and make your own...



See ya Sunday!!

Jesus is not a Fat Coach

This is today's post of the day winner (ok there's no contest, it's jsut a cool post) - from Mandy ---

click on the title link and see how Jesus isn't a fat coach.

Are you a LOSER?

It's funny I found this after last week's traffic - I had to try it out, even though I dislike most of these silly little things. Sometimes even I have some stupid fun.




comment on your loser-status...

Film & Theology: Napoleon Dynamite Night

tonight is the Napoleon Dynamite film and theology night...

It should be cool,: great prizes... think fishing line, bicycles and teather ball!!

Who knew theology was this fun?

Emergent Celebrity

So there's not going to be an emergent convention for the next couple of years and I think that might be really, really good.

Emerging things seem to be such a market driven piece of property that it is becoming hard to know what is going on out here. To me, emerging is about a community becoming, not about attendance at conferences.

Which brings me to that which prompted this. Our church is looking at the addition of a worship pastor (focus on the pastor part more than the worship part) and one of the good looking applications was from a former YP who turned into a worship pastor. He had Sonlife advanced one and two, both of which I'd love to learn in, and He had been to the past two emergent conventions (which, from some reports were heavy on the convention and light on the emergent - which adds even more problems to my gut reaction). when I saw that I was, to my horror, jealous. I had to actually ask myself what was going on inside of me -

I figure that I had become enamored by the celebrity of the emergent group. They've got books and conferences and appearances on Larry King...and really...really...what does that mean?

I am going to try and get past the celebrity worship part of my life...which getting older is really helping...but it is going to read it's ugly head again (no offense intended to the good looking fellows at emergent). I don't think the fellows at emergent want to be celebrities, but that's what us americans do, right? Take a good thing and market it...

Just another step in the reorientation -

Hitch

Hitch - great movie - it's about a youth pastor who learns to stop making little people who love God and start just loving God himself and allows other men to follow him.

Except:
youth pastor is played by a date doctor
little people are played by single men
God is played by women

Nice movie.

Good theology.

Google Ads

Hey - new to the reorientation are google ads - it's a way for the reorientation to pay for itself so that I can move to a better blog hosting software.

Not that blogger hasn't been very very good to me...

So go ahead and click on the google ads - every click pays a little more into the reorientation, which helps get better websites!! And it ain't your money anyways -


ps. please don't do a bunch of clicks for no reason, that would be stupid and would violate the spirit of the agreement with google.

That's all - later-

The Relevant Church, Jennifer Ashley ed.

Great leaders don't always make great writers.

This book is a collection of stories from church planters of "emerging" churches. In some cases, really great, in other cases, it's like reading the diary of someone I want to emulate, but they just talk about crap. It's a really, really easy read, especially when you skim through the chemical waste.

This is the first book I've read from Relevant Books, which makes me nervous that Relevant Media Group has so filled a gap in Christian marketing that they think they can get away with anything (ring a Bell-South?).

Meanwhile, there are some great people writing in this book, and they have some great quotes, with the appropriate writer attributed.

- Brian Kay

"It is impossible to be a follower of Christ and not be a part of a local church. There, I said it."

"...others go from church to church in an effort to put together a smorgasboard of the best teaching, best music, best small group, best whatever. Church hopping is the only tolerated promiscuity in Christian culture"

- Alex McManus

" 'Creativity is the natural result of spirituality' "

"We would have to be Rafiki...we shake a coconut, throw some dust, do a little dance and can't figure out how to cover our butts."

- Jason Zahariades

"Yet, over it's ling history, Israel distorts its vocation as a blessing to the nations. Rather than being an inclusive transformative community, it accentuates its distinct ethnic identity in order to keep the other nations at bay."


not bad. but not that great.

reorienting the reorientation

some site changes - new links, a couple new blogs and a few sites that are interesting - massive change, ten by ten, 722.

got rid of the future books section - Lord knows I have a way to long reading list, but I am getting on with it. I'm going to keep the past books link for now though, we'll see how long it takes for me to get rid of that.

OK -

The evangelicals are screwed! Part Deux!

Last night Larry King hosted a discussion with a few of the most influential american evangelicals on his talk show. Each of them was a included in TIME magazine's 25 most influential evangelicals in America list, which is from their most recent issus, dealing with the power of evangelicals in the American political world.

On the show were Tim and Beverly LaHaye, Franklin Graham, T.D. Janks, and Brian McLaren. Of course, it was easy to see who was going to be relevant, and who wasn't.

The LaHayes are sure doing a great job at whatever it is they are doing, but heck if I know what that is!

Franklin Graham was his normal stuff, giving the gospel message in a very humble way, but giving it none the less.

T.D. kept his patience even though Larry King talked to him about the evangelical track record with racism (which in case you haven't noticed - sucks - America was not built on biblical principles, it was built on the backs of black slaves).

Brian McLaren, perhaps the least evangelical of them all, was what was expected as well.

No big surprises.

One caller in to the show did make me think though, and then another did too.

First, one caller commended McLaren and Janks for being open-minded. It made me wonder why we have to be polarized into open- or closed-minded...

I think it is the real call of Christians to be known as compassionate, which may well go beyond the open/closed minded discussion. Compassion is like the flavoring in the dish, because being open- or closed- minded without compassion is pretty much the same thing isn't it? And perhaps, people who commend Christians for being open-minded have no idea what they are talking about and really just admire the compassion with which the person responds.

Second, a caller asked McLaren about his view on the war. I love going to listen to Brian speak, simply to hear the people try to peg him down with their heretic darts. McLAren wasw wise though, and stuck by his views, being a little sneaky about not saying whether or not he supported Bush, but being outright in saying that he does not support Bush's actions in the world.

I think we're all very, very grateful for the initial good results from the election, so I have nothing but gratitude that went so well. And I think we're all so proud of the Iraqi people for, at great risk, going out to vote. But I think we still, many of us who are Christians are not spoken for, by a lot of the most public voices. And a lot of us are raising very deep questions about the U.S.'s role in the world, and is this really a sensible role for us to take.

So, it was an interesting night, and will be good conversation for the small group this week...