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.