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?