"Whosoever does not have the stomach for this fight, let him depart.
Give him money to speed his departure, since we do not wish to die in that man's company.

For whosoever lives past this day and comes home safely will rouse himself every year on this day,
show his neighbors his scars, and tell embellished stories of all the great feats of battle.
These stories he will teach to his sons and from this day until the end of the world,

we shall be remembered.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

For whosoever shall shed his blood with me today shall be my brother, and those men afraid to go will think themselves as lesser men to hear how we fought and died together."

~ Henry V, William Shakespeare

This is just a quote I love and have loved for a number of years. I first came upon it when I was in the reserves and I am reading it to the missions team tonight. It is just a great representation of the unequaled comraderie that is experienced when men and women experience battle together.

Soldiers of the cross...

WORLD FAMOUS!

Welcome youth workers! It is an honor to be on your screen today! For those of you who are regulars here (read: mom and dad) my blog is featured in the YS update today! What an honor. I am now a world famous blogger!

So, if you have never been, I encourage you to check out the YS boards, which are a huge source of encouragement and wisdom for me - my name there is insanitysolution - paying tribute to King David.

Anyways - it's Wednesday, I've got a cold and have to be ready for tonight. Very Excited about what God is going to do - saw Him work last week and it was such a blessing.

PS - the church bought a shuttle bus that is a 21 seater - can you say gonna need my CDL and passenger endoursement - can you say gonna need to install a TV!

LAter!

>Whale Rider

I saw the movie and loved it, but it was a little on the slow side...it has that in common with the other N.Z. movie, The Piano. However, both movies were equally moving. Whale Rider has cool symbolism and is a movie that can spark neat conversations among those of us who are connected to something very, very old (Giglio).

One short disclaimer: I am biased from my trip to N.Z. and my eternal desire to visit once again, and by visit, I mean 10 years. Hence my continued hope that this earth is so very similar to the new earth - that this earth is the material used for the next.

DO THE ENGLISH OWN THE WORLD!

It's just a wondering that I am having...how come so many things that I love and see as so very progressive, come from England. I need to move to New Zealand!

I am now a member of the Albany public library. I picked up two videos for LJ and a Dougla Couplan book, Microserfs.

I am a fan of Coupland from way back, and it caused me to have to take a bath and read this morning.


Oh and by the way - stupid visa company. Stupid visa company.

Back from the weekend...

I am back from ATF, where 7,000 kids where and 45,000 seemed to get saved. It was kind of the land of the altar call. Funny, I wonder how many kids who responded to the "recommit" call on Saturday had just been up at the altar call the night before getting saved. It is kind of funny for me, but I also understand how synthetic/conventional faith is encouraged at these big conferences. Josh McDowell was absolutely outstanding. I was very impressed, encouraged and convicted by his story. And Ron Luce's final session was the best final session I have ever seen at ATF. He talked about the difference between a disciple and a member of the crowd. I really appreciated the way it spoke to our kids.

We also attended mars hill church in Seattle. It really ministered to me as well. I think myself more than the high schoolers I was with. I think they were a little tired after the weekend. but I loved it and would encourage you to visit with them if you are in the Seattle area.

I have another big trip this weekend.
CANANDA!!!


I'll let you know how it goes. I still want to talk abit about my lecture with McLaren, so that will come.

Tonight I am going to Acquire the Fire - a huge youth event - it's pretty exciting...I am also going to be visiting mars hill church in Seattle. I am pretty excited to be able to experience an emerging church first hand, this is where I am moving to, it's where I am living.

ATF - the bastion of mintertainistry and marketing - and mars hill - a progressive anti-relitivistic, precluding nihlistic consumerism church - how opposite could that be?

I'm hoping the students see a big difference, and that will be open to a lot of discussion. I've just finished opening up their world to Brian McLaren, now I have to be ready for the paradigm shifting!

I am Permanent!

Today - in a surprising turn of events, I got my green card. It's really just a stamp in my passport, as my real card is supposed, hopefully, to come soon...we'll see

All in all -

GOOD DAY!

I just added the ability to post comments on my blog and it was incredibly easy!

Next step is going to be figuring out how to post pictures in my posts and to make extra columns and then I will be a world famous blogger!



That is my son, lj, and me, having a little fun - this is my attempt to put a pic on my blog - if it works - I am rad!

ps - Having a great day - doing innerviews (not a sp?) with kids to take them on a mission to San Francisco this summer - I love the weeks as a youth pastor that I get to spend with students - I want to talk a bit about our neXus group las tonight - but that's another post!

Mt. St. Helens

Went and saw Mt. St. Helens yesterday - one of those places that you just have to sit back and say - "dang, God outdid Himself here." Heather took some pictures that I hope to be able to put up here, as soon as I figure out how to do that?!

It was remarkable, though, the amount of observing that you could do from inside buildings...they have centers set up all the way up to the mountain so you can observe elk, rivers, the mountain itself from climate controlled centers with big windows. And then you go and watch a movie showing the valley below, instead of just driving up to it...

because of my transition currently, I couldn't help but think of it as an example of the modern penchant towards cleaning things up and making it sanitary and safe to experience.

Heather and I want to go back - but not go to any centers, we want to walk the floor and feel the mountain's presence. Just our conversations about that, betray our transitioning mindsets - or the realization of our transition.

Do go though - if you are near - it's a remarkable journey.

So, yes...it is rocking my world...

Ok LJ's here

bbhvhhv

>> jcbhbhbxxh ,mmb


Soljm b

Lj is going to interact here, but I am reading new kind of christin\annj. m ,I have quit 4 time7s ans d beyca6ming reg-fsgavhed abotut 6 times.

Rocking my world

Oh my Lakers...

Last Sunday I was blessed by God to sit and watch a Lakers game with my son. He's learning.

I love the Lakers, and will always, most likely. But what on earth is going on? Why are all the stars falling apart, lliterally?

Two things need done:

1. Fire the trainer. Or get him some training!
2. Realize it's Shaq's team and allow Him the touch the ball every time down the floor. He should lead the league in points, assists and rebounds. But His team doesn't believe me.

OH NO! I might be a modern!

So I am experienceing a bit of a paradigm shift, that most of us are right now. Things are changing but we can't exactly touch it. It's there, but you can't see it. Can't see the wind, but you like to breathe air right? (rip D-Boy)

So the other day I came to terms with the fact that I might be a modern. That sucks. I want to be a postmodern. I see modernism as a greater avenue of evil than good. Sure, they gave us great stuff like medicine and microwaves, but I don't like them enough to deal with the evil that came also. In fact, I haven't had a microwave for 8 months now, and I only miss the microwave popcorn! Modernism, to me, is not desired. It is the past, I live in the future.

But the reality is I come into this with a history of modernism. Just the other day I was on the phone with my youth minstry professor, who was also my Sonlife coach (not an official thing, just how we circled our relationship), and I was complaining to him that everything I learned in college was modern, and useless where I live now. It's like getting a degree in Spanish to be able to lead Frenchmen. Somethings are understandable, but most of the communication is lost in translation.

I GRADUATED LAST MAY!

That makes it scary. Everything about everything is changing.

So, returning from my intellectual sojurn, I find that I have a desire to be postmodern, but all of my faith training, including Bible College, was done in a way that was throughly modern. I am a modern creation. I now have to work at deconstructing everything in order to recreate something that has to do with the reality I live in now. I have to learn to change my accent. "de" (sounds:deuh) in Spanish sounds nothing like "de" (sounds:day) in French.

And now, I am wondering if I am postmodern or not. Does my desire to categorize betray my modernism? Does my struggle with categories betray my postmodernism?

I am not postmodern in any sense of a pure version. I am not modern in any sense of a pure version.

I am coming out of modernism into postmodernism. This gives struggles that a postmodern (in the pure sense) will never know. These people may not exist for a hundred years, as the contributions of modernism cease to dominate the mainstream.

So I ask more questions than I give answers, so today I feel postmodern. It's like asking if someone is a Calvinist. My reply to that question is usually, "Today?" And then I confess that on that particular day I am a (1-5, usually around 2ish) point Calvanist. But it changes. It is fluid.

So I say this: today I am a postmodern. But I doubt it.

A little clarification...

I'm not trying to say that one is right or the other is wrong. I wanted to express my fear that the emergent church movement is mirroring the things that the modern church did, which we now are convincing ourselves that we are different.

I may be totally wrong. I'm cool with that. I have spent the last 10 years trying to kill my need to be right. So being wrong is like a little victory to me - but more therapy later.

Allow myself to explain ...errrr....myself....

I don't think postmodernism is fully developed yet either. So[I]at this time[/I] there is likely no such thing as a purely postmodern church. Though this is what I meant to say - that postmoderns are targeted - which is mirroring the modern church!

My wondering is: Is that right?

As far as revealing one's theology...I was using the term, perhaps incorrectly, to represent one's belief system. Like a grid through which one operates, involving known and tacit knowledge, interacting with reality with certain presuppositions about the invisible reality. So in saying that these methods reveal, or betray (Tony Jones!), his theology I wanted to say that hsi true beliefs come out in methodlogy.

Perhaps then one could say that theology, a system of beliefs interacting with reality, is the same as methodolgy? Maybe.

Nextly, (this is the last time I post after teaching on Revelation...my brain must have been fried!) I used the word generations, which is not the best term. I also see postmodernism and modernism as mindsets, they just are exposing themselves, for the most part, in the different generations right now. Perhaps that is a little bit of modernism coming out in me?

Lastly,



I do not want to say either that Mark Driscoll is unbiblical - I really believe just the opposite! Rather, I want to say that either way could be right, and my fear is that one way may be wrong - maybe not - hopefully not. And, I didn't want to say [I]my Biblical theology[/I], as if I am assuming that I am correct. I wanted to express the belief I have that there is an absolutely correct biblical theology...which, of course, we cannot know absolutely.

My major fear, in all of this emergent stuff, is that we will turn out like the modern church. It's sins may well become our own, with different symptoms or expressions or whatever. I deeply desire that we may develop a church universal that is liquid enough to transition mindsets and generations without having to split the people of God into categories to be ministered too. Do I believe it possible? Probably not, but I am a uptopian socialist and I don't see it working anywhere on earth either!


And if anyone is still reading this...I don't know that pragmatism and scripture have to conflict. I just think that scripture is the panecea, not pragmatism.

Methodolgy and Theology

Imagine two approaches to the emerging church:

1. A Mark Driscoll quote (paraphrase: quit youth ministry and start your own church) inspired young person decides to leave his unsatisfying modern church to go out and blaze a trail in the emerging generation and start a purely postmodern church, ignoring the modernist society that still dominates the mainstream.

His theology revealed here, is that God values the postmoderns, perhaps even at the expense of the moderns. His methodology revleals a high value placed on the work of God in postmoderns lives, and a low value place on the work of God in modern lives.

2. Another young person stays in his youth/college ministry position in a thoroughly modern style church and attempts to bridge the gap between the generations. This, of course, will have a double negative effect in appearance - A. there will long be frustrations between the two generations as they seek to understand and, hopefully, love and appreciate each other; B. this church will not be "one of the fastest growing church in America" and may even become smaller numerically, because of shallow church goers leaving to find "easier" pastures elsewhere, where all ministry meets my "needs."

His theology reveled here is that he believes that the Biblical method of ministry is to bridge generations and for the faith to be passed down as God makes his appeal to generation after generation. He shows less partiality generationally and vlaue God working in the universal church.


No doubt, you can even read into my writing my own theology, and judge by the method of my writing, where I place my emphasis and value. My methodology, through stories, electronic media, in a somewhat scholarly place for those who love youth...shows my theology through in my value for God's working, value of community and value of the next generation.

I am deathly afraid that method one may be unbiblical!

Not even in a judging way or a condescending way. I am simply finding myself often afraid that the methodologies used do not line up with a Biblical theology. I see methodolgies that look incredibly successful and I do not doubt that God is working...but I wonder if the leaders are leading from a Biblical theology or a pragmatic theology?

Perhaps that is my greates question - whose answer may be my greatest fear.

What is the emergent church?

I was asked today, twice, and couldn't form an answer. Maybe that's what it is...a church, a group of people following God without the answer.

Are answers a modern imposition on following Christ?

I think I am going to spend some time trying to delineate the impositions of modernism on Christianity.

I'm back from a busy weekend.

We did the 30 hour Famine this weekend for the first time with this group. It was really cool and fun to have the kids go through the things they did.

I am a little brain dead right now - more inteligence later!

Oh yeah...a little bit about myself!

I'm a twentysomething Canadian living in Oregon, USA.

I have a B.Sc. in Mathematics, from Nipissing University in Canada, and then a B.S. (ohh the irony) in Youth Ministry, from Toccoa Falls College in Georgia.

I have a great wife (who is fine looking also) and a great son. They make me who I am, and make sure I look good too.

I am currently a youth pastor to high school and college students.

I am engaging postmodernism and flowing with it.

I love being pomo.

Good morning...

This is the first post in the reorient blog.

Inspired by an article by Leonard Sweet I will be detailing and expressing the current culture, thoughts and deisres towards the reorientation.

I believe the church, Christian church, is in need of and set up for a new change. Similar to the reformation in severity and mass of change, but more resembling a change in orientation.

Wher is the church facing?

I hope this will be fun, will be engaging spirtually, emotionally and intellectually.

I hope we can grow together. I am amped in view of the future of God's kingdom!

It's not of this world!