Fort Worth Dish Out

Last night I participated in the 3rd Fort Worth Dish Out (facebook group). It was at 809 at Vickery and was themed around homelessness issues.  

There were three presenters:

Street Swags

The Net

Restorative Justice 

We had the feeling that only 75 people were going to attend and I was feeling a bit low on that as I think I could have done a better job at increasing our odds of hitting our average. The thing was though, there were over 100 people there last night and I am totally blown away by the response.

It is a prayer that while the Church does not need to do more Dish Outs we do need to learn to trust a bit more. Last night I was not doing well at trusting the idea of Fort Worth Dish Out and believed that the success and failure of such an idea is predicated on me.

That was just way wrong. 

The FwDo has an amazingly wonderful leadership team and one that truly can take this thing and make it their own. 

They embodied a trust in the idea of FwDo that I failed to embody. In more ways than I can count, this leadership team is well equipped to run with the FwDo.

If only I could get out of their way...

Thank you all who work so hard to make the Fort Worth Dish Out a success. Especially the design team of Jenny, Robin, Red and Van. 

What percentage are you?

In case you missed the whole Occupy Movement, in a nutshell it was raising up the economic disparity in America. The chasm is great between the have and the have nots. As such, here is a little tool to help you see perhaps where you might fall into the income percentage in your area of the United States.

I am not sure if you are supposed to do your before tax income (I think that is the intention of this tool), but you can do your post tax income if you would like.

According to this my household is in the top 40% in my area. It makes me wonder if my socio-economic level pushes me farther away from the needs of people in other income brackets? It makes me wonder if I am in fact richer than I think I am.

Bibliolatry and John 1

Reading the opening verses of John's gospel, I am reminded how incredible the incarnation is. That is just how amazing it is that in Jesus is what a life full of God looks like - Jesus is God incarnate.

As great as the Bible is, let us be very clear, the Bible is not the greatest revelation of God. John is very clear that the greatest way we know God is not through scriptures but through the Word made flesh (aka - Jesus).

The UMC has a tradition of holding the scriptures as one of the four corners of the quadrilateral. You may have heard it before that the UMC "does" theology using scripture, tradition, experience and reason. But again, for clarity sake, these four sources, even if they are combined, are not even close to being on par with the Word made flesh.

So while we read the Word, let us not be confused. John is not talking about the written words on a page. John is not talking about the Bible. John in not talking about any scripture at all. John is talking about Jesus Christ.

We do not worship the Bible. We worship Christ, whom we understand to be the Word made flesh.

In our efforts to better understand Jesus, let us not forget that the Bible is but a finger pointing to the moon that is Christ. Do not confuse the finger with the beauty and complexity of the moon.