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.

Pretending on Sundays

Nick (Thinking PAdre) has put up an interesting quick thought (dated: Friday, August 26, 2005) on the plight of the "associate" pastor who fills in while the "SR" is gone.

I empathize because I think it's true. I wonder how many people are pretending to listen on a Sunday morning. I also wonder how many people are in denial about how many people are listening on Sunday morning.

Also - I think another major difference in teaching adults and teaching students is that students don't pretend if you are boring. They haven't been conditioned into pretending on Sunday mornings. This is just another reason why I consider it a priviledge to be around teens so much. They are so core.

I wonder what those of us who are YP's can do to keep the students from being conditioned into pretending on Sunday mornings?

Pat Freaking Robertson

I've tried my hardest to ignore this guy, but it's just becoming harder and harder. Last night I watched a bit of Hardball with Chris Mattehews and he had on a token evangelical pastor, a token liberal author and Jim Wallis, who wrote God's Politics (which I have not/proly will not read/but heard was really great). Anyways, Wallis was calling for Robertson to retire and to stop being a goofball blemish.

For those of you who don't know, Robertson called for the assasination of the leader of Venezula. Dumb. Plain dumb.

I wish that he would stop speaking for so many people. Just because you are a millionare that gets other people to still donate money to you to run your stupid TV show doesn't mean you speak to me.

As of right now I declare to the world that I am not a conservative evangelical who has Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, or any Dobson for a spokesperson.

Call me progressive, call me liberal, just don't call me part of the conservative evangelical right wing moron political machine.

Dang this ticks me off. Put down the megaphone Robertson - nobody's taking you seriously anymore.

SPAM Master

It had to happen sooner or later - the reorientation has been spammed! A bunch of comments came through that are just ads for other junk. I don't even know what/where they are, but I'll delete what I can.

Gretzky!!

While I was away at camp, the earth shifted. The universe changed. Reality was altered.

Wayne Gretzky is assigning himself as coach of the Phoenix Coyotes. This changes everything. He is taking on the role knowing that the general rule is that great players don't make great coaches but, aware of this, Gretzky intends to, once again, rewrite the rules of the NHL. Without argument Gretzky is the greatest to ever play his sport, many others have tried, but Wayne did it all - He would be the all-time point leader if he never, ever even scored a goal. Yet, he also scored more goals than anyone in history. And made more assists than anyone in history.


Indeed it is an exciting time to be a hockey fan.

This post is made with apologizes to dummies who think that Jordan was a better athlete than Gretzky...can Jordan even skate?

Mayfield Madness

Still recovering a bit from high school camp. I think there were a bunch of girls stampeding through my cabin at about 5 am on Saturday! Whatever...

I finished Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis really fast and will go back through it before posting on it. Currently I am still working on Andy Stanley's "Next Generation Leader" which is really not hitting it with me. No turntables, if you know what I mean...

I am also straining my way through Practicing Passion by Kenda Creasy Dean. IT IS ABSOLUTELY FAB!! If you are in youth ministry and believe there is more to this calling than lessons and games - this book is an absolute must.

A'ight - I'm out - trying to catch up!!

It's Official!

As of last Thursday night I am an official licensed minister in the Evangelical Chruch of North America. That means I can marry people, bury people, give them communion in church without any red tape and baptize people with the "official" blessing of the denomination. I really could have done all of those things before, but now I carry an implicit stamp of support from the denomination.

Denominations are great. Sure, they provide buttloads of red tape and reports and seem to be full of busybodies...but they are also full of really godly, wise men who encourage me and promise to pray for me and support me and keep me level headed; I do the same for them. Doug Padgit once compared a denomination to a family, with all the baggage and all the great stuff that goes along with that.

So that's it.

Communion anyone?

The Present Future, Reggie McNeal

McNeal's book A Work of Heart was assigned to me as a part of my capstone internship program at TFC, so I went into it with a bit of a negative attitude (which I have towards most things I am forced to do, something I still work on to this day), but it surprised me...a lot. It remains one of my favorite books of leadership in the church.

So, on that knowledge and from Nick's whole blog on McNeal's new book, The Present Future, I picked up McNeal's latest and here are some great quotes and things I learned. There are some parts that really affected some of my thinking that I won't post here, because some of the thoughts are deeper and longer. But, if you are concerned with the future of the church (meaning: you are called to lead her) then this book comes with two reorienting thumbs up!


On the "refuge" mentality: which is touchy because the former yp here at SACC named the youth group refuge, and now has named his new church refuge. So when James agrees against the refuge mentality, it's touchy. Welcome to the reorientation!
p.8 "Many congregations and church leaders, faced with the collapse of the church culture, have responded by adopting a refuge mentality"
p.9 "Evangelism in this world (refuge world) is about churching the unchurched, not connecting people to Jesus...Refuge churches evidence enormus self-preoccupation. They decieve themselves into believing they are a potent force."

p. 17 "He (Jesus) preached that God was for people, not against them. He defined the litmus test for genuine spirituality in terms of one's relationships."

p.27 "The North American church culture is not spiritual enough to reach our culture."

p.36 "The power of the gospel is lost on church memebers who can sign off on doctrinal positions but have no story of personal transformation."

on John 8,

p. 39 "In the ensuing dialogue with the crowd of would-be executionsers Jesus proved that he is for the woman, not against her. He becomes her champion...Then after everyone is gone he tells her, in effect, 'Why don't you quit living like this? It's going to kill you.' No shrinking back. No 'I'm OK; you're OK' stuff."

p.50 "I am proposing that missiology come into prominence, both as a theological pursuit and as a guiding operational paradigm."

p.71 "People don't want to be assimilated."

p.73 "I think the solution is an abandonment of the church culture idolatry and a radical reintroduction of spiritual formation."

p.81 "The devil knows more Bible than most church members in North America and can sign off on our doctrinal statements, but this knowledge has not transformed him."



One big idea I will share and hopefully you will go out and buy this book because of this: McNeal shares and semi-develops and idea for Spiritual Development Coaches within the church. Much like the "life coach" idea that is so popular (and effective) today. Insteads of a "mentoring program", what if the church had a small army of people who were qualified to be a spiritual development coach for younger beleivers? It'll get you thinking!!

Other reflections on Vancouver

Here are some links to some other peeps' reflections on the missions trip to Vancouver:

Theresa

Joyce

If there's more just post them in the comments.

PDX and back in 2.5 hours.

Last night Nate and I drove up to Portland and back and had the most awesome discussions. I am a process salvationist, which I'm not sure what that means, but it's where all of my suspicions about Jesus' teachings lead me. Nate is even more suspicious than me.

Nate and I have the kind of relationship where we are allowed to make observations about each other and each other's lives. It's really valuable to me - and it helps us to form sound theology as we wrestle through postmodernism and Christianity.

Last night we processed a bunch more of the theology of process salvationism in light of the redemptive movement hermenuetic and Nate's thoughts on the circle of eternal life returning to the garden (as it was in eden so it will be - ish stuff).

Anyways, we decided that one thing we'd like to see return to the church is the marker of baptism as the marker of a decision to follow Christ permanently. I had been taught that people should be given doctrinal classes before being baptized, but I really think the people who taught me were wrong. I think in a post-God society, baptism is an experiential way to show one's commitment to following the ways and teachings of Jesus.

For Nathan and I, we think people should be allowed to try out Christianity before having to say the "sinner's prayer." In fact, we kind of think baptism shoudl replace the sinner's prayer.

Put that in your denominational report and smoke it.

Becoming a Pastor

Since I got the little Nedstat button in the right hand column I can see how people are ending up at the reorientation. The funniest thing is that my most popular search that brings people here is "pastor jeremy gange"!!

One person ended up at my site when they asked yahoo about becoming a pastor. may God have mercy on the person who is coming here to find out how to be a pastor!!

I left my heart in Vancouver

I'm just getting over a minstry hangover.

We spent the last week serving and loving in the inner city of Vancouver, Canada. It was an experience that will, no doubt, provide for many opinionated blog posts.

Right now there is still much blur. Some students are posting and I'll link to them later, but right now I am back. And that's the best I can do.

The team felt overwhelmed by the concentration of addiction and poverty in the East Hastings area of Vancouver. Many expressed feelings of hopelessness and having no chance of making any difference. There was the feeling of trying to empty the ocean with a thimble. We all felt it. We all felt it deeply.

Yet we were reminded that our calling was to love. It was expressed in many different ways (serving, cleaning, feeding, praying, etc.) yet the core was the same.

We are Driven. by love and by Christ.

And after everything, love wins.

We did not condemn. We did not fix. We did not save the inner city of Vancouver.

We feel in love with it.

Cool Stuff

There's a new little check mark on the sidebar - it's a bunch of code from a guy I really like: Bob Hyatt from the evergreen community up in PDX.

The little checkmark is a boatload of information, like who visits my site, from where and when and blah blah blah. Really, it's just fun.

Anyways, I'm also realizing I need to organize my links in the right column. And, apparently, I need to write another blogpost on not cussing, b/c that really gets the comments flowing. Instead, I'm working on my new t-shirt company, which I have not given any advertising too. I won't even do that here...not yet anyways.

London Terror Attacks

We all awoke this morning to find that London has been hit by what seems to be an organized terror attack.

Our prayers will continue for our friends and our enemies.

Ferrrrrrrennnnneerrrs

When I moved into the US, I lived in GA, where I learned I was a ferrrrrnnnneeerr. Later, I learned that was slang for "foreigner."

So, I live my life as a missionary to teens in a country that doesn't think it needs missionaries. I am a missionary to a Christian country, is it any wonder that I am often frustrated?

Anyways -

July 1 was Canada Day. A day where Canada celebrates it is it's own country, as long as the Queen allows it to be so.

On July 1 I received an email from the Canadian Ambassador to America, Frank McKenna. He just became Ambassador on March 8th. I've lived here 5.5 years and he is the first Ambassador to contact me.

He invited me to register at a site called, Connect2Canada - so now I am connected.

Isn't great belonging somewhere?

Redemptive Movement Hermeneutic

As happens to me frequently, I think something, wonder if I am crazy, do some checking and then find I am not the only one that is crazy. I need to put that on one of my t-shirts.

The other day I was going to Mars Hill Michigan, where I frequently download the teachings of Rob Bell. I close to wholeheartedly agree with the teachings of Rob Bell. I find him not trying to be "emergent" but rather emphasizing living in the way of Jesus and following Him closely.

Anyways, I always get their url wrong, so I yahoo searched it and saw a link to it from a gender magazine. Thinking that was interesting I read the article. Ends up the magazine is very complementarian, which means they hold to an understanding of the Scriptures that ignores cultural influences. (For example, if it says women shouldn't be elders in the New Testament times, then women shouldn't be elders now either.) They also rip on Mars Hill and on Rob Bell personally. It's an interesting read if you'd like.

For a long time I have held to male only elders, though I thought women pastors were fine as long as the SP was male. I held to that, because I thought that if I allowed women elders, then I had to make other concessions to the Scriptures as well, including allowing homosexuality. So, I was, basically, opposed to women church leadership because I was pretty sure that God didn't like homosexuality.

Weird...now that I write it out. I'll have to call my mom - we talk about this often.

So, from the article I also found that Rob Bell holds to a hermeneutic called "Redemptive Movement" that has been brought further into the mainstream by a professor William Webb (who is working in Canada, thank you very much).

It seems this Redemptive Movement Hermeneutic is focused on the desire of God as it moves through the Scriptures. It then extrapolates to find the heart of God in the "ultimate" desire of God.

So, I have to do some more reading on this, but I think it might help me explain what I am thinking in process salvationism. I am going to have to email Brian McLaren and William Webb to find this out. But you can check out some of the links and comment about what you think...

Save the Forest

Last night we had a youth ministry Capture the Flag style game up in Millersberg - it was super fun - our group is really learning how to have fun together and play. When I first came to this church, little clicks were having fun together but there was no group - it's really turning around. For the Sonlife among us, we are developing a loving environment and a Biblical Ministry Image.

This morning I was unloading the shuttle bus of 1,000 feet of police tape and other pairfinalia. I picked up a box of fire wood at the store before heading out yesterday and when I was unloading it this morning I noticed, in big red writing, on the side of the box,

SAVE A TREE, BURN ME INSTEAD

.

Inside the box are some logs made out of wood. Apparently this is a special type of wood that is not made from trees. And, thanks be to the manufacturers, because they also made the cardboard box out of a material that did not us tress.

Gotta love that modern technology.