be the change you wish to see in the world

What percentage are you?

2012-01-28T06:00:00.000-06:00

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.

Waiting the Christian way

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-06:00

It is often understood that to wait, especially in today'a fast paced world, is something that is not only antiquated but also an excuse to remain passive as the world passes you by. Waiting is something that is frowned upon in a number of circles and even argued to be a waste of time.

An argument against some Christian circles is that they are so busy waiting for heaven that they are no earthly good. While at the same time, there is something eternally hopeful about waiting. When we are waiting we are convinced that something will come. An appointment, a train, an apology. We are hopeful that these things we wait for will come.

The fact of the matter is, Christian waiting is a specific type of waiting and hoping. We wait for the coming of the Kingdom of God, but it is a participatory waiting. Waiting for the Kingdom of God is not idle waiting.

When we talk of waiting for Christ or the Kingdom of God, we are not talking about waiting at a bus stop while we fidget on the firm bench at the corner. When you wait for the bus, you know the bus is coming but there is nothing that you can do to speed the bus up or slow it down. Waiting for the bus is not the same as waiting for Christ.

Waiting for Christ is like hailing a cab. Like waiting for a bus, you must wait for a cab to identify you. But you must hail the cab, you must move to a visible location, you have to participate while you wait for a cab or you will never catch a cab - even if the cab is on the look out for passengers.

Christian waiting is more of hailing cabs than waiting for the bus. And when we actively wait then we will truly get somewhere.

Bibliolatry and John 1

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-06:00

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.

Jobs within the job

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

A few of the full-time jobs within the call of a senior minister in the UMC (alphabetically):

Administrator
Chaplin
Councilor
Consultant
Custodian
Emergency responder
Event planner
Funeral director
Fundraiser
Hospitality coordinator
Middle manager
Marketer
Preacher
Publicist
Social worker
Sociologist
Spiritual guru
Teacher
Wedding coordinator

Medium is the message - Real life

2012-01-22T06:00:00.000-06:00

She and I disagree on a number of theological ideas. She might identify more Calvinist and Modern while I might identify with Arminius and Post-modern. We differ on our atonement theories and our understandings of most things ranging from, I would suspect, sexual orientation to political engagement.

It is often the case that to encountered someone from the "other tribe" is to find in them an enemy, but the fact of the matter is I have nothing but respect for her.

She is devoted to her local church. She volunteers when able. She leads a weekly Bible study in which she is the lead teacher for hundreds of women. She has devoted her life and time living into her understanding of the Christian life. I wish that my local Church had more people like her.

Some of my fellow UMC clergy around the conference would find this next statement shocking, but while she and I disagree on a number of political, theological and social issues, I would allow her to teach in a Church I serve.

Why?

The medium, that is to say her life, is a message that is deeply loving and caring and hope-filled. Her life is a message that is powerful and ought to be shared.

This is where the idea of the medium is the message matters in the Church.

You could have your "theological message" in line with me or even the UMC, but if your life, if you as a the medium for that message, is not Gospel, know that I would take someone who I disagree with in message content but agree with in medium any day.

"Medium is the Message"

2012-01-20T06:00:00.000-06:00

There is a great deal of conversation among people about this idea expressed in the phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan, "The medium is the message."

The metaphor that is given is that the content of a message has as much meaning as the stenciling on the case of an atomic bomb.

This cuts to the core of many preachers who feel that it is really the content of what is being expressed that matters a great deal than the actual medium that is used. So churches debate the use of the internet to spread the gospel or maybe facebook is an important tool to use. The conversation is more about the merits of a particular medium (be it print books or ebooks or radio or podcasts etc.) rather than the actual medium itself. Put another way, the mediums are often seen as neutral and do not have an agenda.

McLuhan would argue against this idea. He would argue that in fact every medium has it's own message regardless of the content it is expressing.

Here is an example given by Shane Hipps who says that if a fifteen year old boy were to tell you, "God loves you." That would mean something. However, it would take on a different meaning if an eighty year old widow who lost a child said, "God loves you."

Another example not from Hipps: I can say forgiveness is what the world needs. But it is something different when the parents of the victims of the Amish school shooting say, what the world needs is forgiveness.

If it was the content, if it were the words of the message that was most important than it would not matter who said the words, it should carry the same weight coming from a teenager or a widow.

The medium is the message.

What sort of medium are you becoming?

Church as Revelation

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-06:00

It is often misunderstood, even by Christians, that the Bible contains the words of God. It does not. The bible is however contains the word of God, but the bible doesn't contain the exact words of God.

When Christians talk about the word of god, let us also be clear that we at not talking about the words on the page in the bible. The word of god is made known in the life of Jesus Christ. The bible is one way we access the word of god (AKA Jesus). Therefore the bible contains the Word of God. We can access the Word by way of the Bible.

Additionally, since the Word of god no longer is enfleshed among us in the form of Jesus, god called the church to be the body of Christ. You and I are the body of Christ today. Just like the bible is used to access the Word of god, so too the church is used to access the Word of god.

Do you see where this is going???

If Christ is the greatest revelation of god known to the world, and the church is now the body of Christ then the church is as revelatory of the nature of god as the bible.

The church is as revelatory as the bible because both give access to the Word of god.

This should scare you a little bit.

It is easy to only see the bible as the source of access to the Word because that keeps the Church off the hook. When we take seriously the idea that Christ is made known in the church as Christ is also made known in the scriptures, then our behavior is changed. We are transformed.

When we buy into the idea of Sola scriptura as access to god then we are saying that god is done working. God is no longer active and moving today.

So while the church may fail at exposing the word of god at times, I wonder what it might look like if the church too seriously the idea that we are called to be the body of Christ. Are we willing to be that revelatory?

Ministry re-tweeting

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

There seems to be a couple to types of people I encounter on the internet - tweeters and re-tweeters.

Creators of content (tweeters) and replicators of content (re-tweeters).

Both serve a function and have a place. I will be honest however, I do not care to much about reading the re-tweeters re-tweets.

Re-tweeting picture :)

Re-tweeting is rather safe to do and involves little engagement with the re-tweet. Most of the time when I re-tweet I just post what I am re-tweeting without any context as to why I am doing so. "Hey! Here is a quote I found. Re-tweeted by a person."

Re-tweeting is not a bad thing at all. It however is not the same as tweeting.

When you tweet you create something new and put yourself out there. You have to give some context as to what you are doing or why you are tweeting it. You have to share something about yourself and be expose to criticism. When we only re-tweet we have the ability to hide behind it and no one is sure if we agree, disagree with the re-tweet. No one knows if a re-tweeted comment is meant to be a joke or serious.

Many of us clergy in my beloved denomination might be described as ministry re-tweeters. We say we want to do different ministry or creative or innovate ministry, but this is a code for something else. Most of the time clergy want an different/creative/innovative ministry that someone else has somewhere else but no one is doing it here. For instance, I ministry re-tweeted the Fort Worth Dish Out.

A ministry re-tweet is not bad, it just is much safer and puts the clergy at a safe distance from the failure or success of the ministry.

tweeting pictures :)

What the UMC is perhaps missing are clergy and laity who are ministry tweeters. The ones who are creating content/ministry. The ones being vulnerable, exposed and opening themselves up to failure and even, dare it be stated, shame. I am currently working on a couple of ministry tweets: Jubilee Bank (a micro-finance for the working poor in Fort Worth Texas using the connectionalism of the UMC) and Five Thousand Words (which first incomplete draft can be found here).

Others can account to the amount of ministry tweeting and re-tweeting I participate in, but the UMC might be a fruitful place if we were to find a balance between ministry tweeting and re-tweeting.

Can we talk about apportionments again...

2012-01-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

Not long ago I mentioned a bit about apportionments in the UMC. You can read that original post here which talks about apportionments as an expression of dying of self. Recently I was thinking about apportionment again and I wanted to share more.

Every charity has a grade that is given to them by different groups on the way they use their monies. The higher the grade the more of your money that goes directly to the mission of the non-profit. The best agencies rock at a 95% rate, good ones are able to give 90% directly to people. So if you know that ninty cents or more of each dollar that is given goes directly to aid, then you know you are making more bang for your buck.

This is where the UMC really can shine.

When you give to the agencies of the UMC, such as UMCOR, 100% of the money that is given goes directly to aid. Let me say that again, 100% of the money you give to UMCOR, goes to the people on the ground. The reason 100% of what is given to UMCOR goes to aid is even possible is because of apportionments.

The United Methodist Church funds all the overhead, all the administrative costs, all the paychecks of staff and all the sundry of costs. So, the giving of people in the pews allow the giving of others to make a larger difference. People of the UMC are funding non-profit's costs so that new people can know more of their money goes to direct aid.

So the people of the UMC give to the local church to amplify the giving of others. Additionally, when members of the UMC give their second mile giving or their offerings (that is anything beyond the tithe) then their gift also is amplified as the overhead is already take care of.

So the UMC gives not only for those who need aid, but we also give so that others giving can be more effective.

The brain as a home for the communion of saints?

2012-01-12T06:00:00.000-06:00

RadioLabs got me thinking again. It tends to do that as it is rather amazing radio show.

You are faced with allowing 5 people to be run over by a train. You can save these 5 people if you pull a lever and redirect the train, however in pulling the lever the train will kill one person standing on the new track.

Most people, according to the RadioLabs sources, say they would pull the lever.

However, if you modify this thought experiment to say that instead of pulling the lever to save 5 people your only option to save these five people would be to push one person in front of the train. When faced with this option, very few people would push the one person.

We are generally okay with pulling a lever and killing one person in order to save five people, but we are generally not okay with pushing a person and killing a person in order to save five people.

Why is this? It is still murder of one person just the means are slightly different. What is going on?

The suggestion that was put forward was that our brains, through evolution, have come to have different voices vying for our attention and action. So part of our brain wins and part of our brain looses each choice we make. So the deep parts of the brain win out over the more advanced logical parts of the brain when we choose to not push the one to save the five.

This deep part of our brain, this emotional and raw part of our brain, is sometimes dubbed the lizard or reptilian or the monkey brain. What if, however, this part of our brain is the collective wisdom of the past. This part of our brain is the collective wisdom of the people who have come before us and with each choice. You have the part of your brain that is informed by the past and does not understand the current society very well, but it has a deep wisdom that we ought to heed. At the same time we have other parts of our brain that are "newer" and do not have the wisdom of the past but can rapidly understand the present culture.

If we dispose of the idea that one part of the brain is "higher order" than others, then we have this idea that our brain may be the house for which the communion of saints (the past humans) dwell. We have a part of the brain that is connected, through the process of evolution, to the past. We have a way to access the deep and rich history of the ages if we only were willing to listen to it more often.

Matthew 17 thoughts

2012-01-10T06:00:00.000-06:00

Matthew 17 has a little story here that came up in Bible study on Sunday.

I have noted about the symbolism in the Bible of fishing before. And I think the case can be made for this text as well. But here is some more to chew on.

Rome forces people to pay the temple tax. That is Rome makes people they want to pay to pay the temple tax. If you were the son of the emperor or a really good friend or a political ally, you did not pay this tax (sound like today's situation in many ways?!) So Jesus pays the tax. But the thing about it is that Jesus does not use his own money to pay the tax. He uses a fish.

Here is the thing.

If Jesus pays the tax, then he is siding with the Roman opposition in that he is giving them money. This is something that the Zealots do not agree with. If he refuses to pay the tax, which would be what the Zealots would love, he sides with the Zealots. Instead Jesus gets Peter to pluck a fish from the pond.

The Hebrew Bible uses the idea of plucking fish from the sea or pond as a way of describing to others that God will pluck the rich and powerful from their place of comfort if they are not responsive to the needs of the poor. For Jesus to send Peter to pluck a fish means Jesus told Peter to go and confront a rich unjust person and get them to repent of their unjust ways.

When the tax is paid by a rich person for a poor person then you have the beginnings of a new social order.

This new social order is not only just in the Biblical sense (that is a fair distribution of goods and services), but it also becomes the cornerstone of a new Kingdom.

If the rich and the poor all have access to the temple, if rich and poor have access to education, if the rich and poor have access to the powers that be then we are talking about no more distinctions between the rich and poor.

Jesus does not side with the Zealots and refuse the tax. Jesus does not side with Rome and pays the tax.

Jesus gets a rich person who was a "fish" and transforms this person in order to allow a new Kingdom to emerge.

Can you imagine that? Someone paying another person's taxes.

That sounds a bit crazy. That sounds a bit like something only Jesus would think of.

Is the UMC heading the way of No Child Left Behind?

2012-01-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Associated Press had this little article the other day which made me think of the UMC's latest push to move toward greater concern about 'metrics'.

Nation wide the UMC is requiring a number of different metrics to be counted and logged into a network online. Basic stuff really. The UMC is saying that it is important to assess where each church is and by counting these different metrics (people in worship, dollars given away, baptisms, etc.) we can begin to set goals for each local church. These goals will be able to help churches who might be "failing".

Ten years ago the USA adopted the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act which sounds rather similar to what the UMC currently saying. NCLB has been exposed for radically falling short of its intended goals (irony if I have ever heard of it). Students are falling behind in math and science and funding is being cut in all areas that are not test related. Teachers are expected to focus on the numbers of the test and students become stats on a spreadsheet.

If the UMC is really embracing the almighty metrics, then might we be wise enough to know that just because people are in worship they are not being spiritually formed. Just because the books might not show service hours does not mean people are not serving their neighbor. Even if people do not know the micro stories of the Bible does not mean the macro narrative is not guiding their lives.

If you are in the UMC I encourage you to read this short article and heed the warnings that we can learn from the failings of the NCLB act.

The Underdog Phenomena

2012-01-06T06:00:00.000-06:00

Freakonomics podcast had an episode not too long ago that talked, in part, about what they identified as the underdog phenomena. According to the podcast, 4 out of 5 of us cheer for the underdog. There are a number of studies that they site that display this effect. For instance, when people are give a choice between cheering for fictional team A or fictional team B, who is favored to win, in a fictional sport - 4 out of 5 people choose to cheer for team A, the underdog.

There are a number of people who try to explain why this underdog effect is strong in people and no one knows the real answer. Perhaps it could very well be that we cheer for the underdog because if winners always win then there is no point to pay attention to the game. There are a number of theories put out there as to why so many of us pull for the underdog, and I would submit perhaps it is rooted in Spirituality.

What I mean is that for some reason there has been, over time, a growing awareness of the "underdogs" of the world. We care more about handicapped people than we did 50 years ago, we care about blind people to create a language for them, we care about abandoned kids and create adoption. We have a growing care and concern for the underdog over time - but where did this concern come from?

Could it be that the original concern for the underdog came by way of religion? Looking at religious laws you can see a concern for the social underdogs. While we judge these laws by today's standards and thus they seem in many ways outdated, in the time they were created they were huge steps forward for care of the underdogs.

Could it be evidence to something "more" in this world that would give us a concern for the underdog. Ants, cows, birds, and fish do not care about the underdog. People do.

Could it be that people care about the underdog (and thus "cheer" for them when we can) because of a revelation in humanity over time? A revelation that cannot be seen or measured or observed but one that in fact influences the world. A revelation that Christians call Christ.

Reading the Bible via Micro or Macro

2012-01-05T06:00:00.000-06:00

Our church is currently undertaking 90 days through the New Testament. The translation we are using is the Common English Bible, a new translation.

As the church has taken this on, I have been asked what "I think of the CEB translation."

Not ever sure ever how to answer this question, it is clear to me that there seems to be two major tribes of people who read the Bible. The "Micros" and the "Macros".

The Micros are those who dissect the Bible in such a way that they look at phrases and words that are in the Bible and compare and contrast them to the phrases and words in other translations (or even source material). Seminaries are great at teaching Micros. The Western worldview is really big on this sort of thing. We dissect things and try to reduce, categorize, and understand each little thing. I was trained in this way of thinking and value it greatly.

Reading the Bible as Micro leads to Bible drills and trivia contests that people raised in the Baptist tradition are well aware of. Reading the Bible in the style of Micro is helpful and educational.

The problem I have discovered in my own life is Micro reading of the Bible is informational but has not been formational. Formational reading of the Bible in my life has come by way of the Macro.

Macro reading of the Bible is one that takes the large picture of the Bible. You may not know the back story of Job but you know the Story of Job. Macros read the Bible like one would read poetry - cadence and rhythm and flow matter. Macros love the King James Bible because it is beautiful. Funerals will have the 23rd Psalm read and it is always the King James Version. The individual words do not matter as much as the flow and overall feel of the reading.

Much like in school, we judge people on their Micro skills when it comes to "knowing the Bible". You "know the Bible" when you are able to recall the answers to the questions (sound likes a test to me). The UMC is in a frantic that people don't "know the Bible". So we teach the Bible. We teach by way of Micro.

It is a fallacy to think that giving people more information will change behavior. Just look at smokers or drinkers who are addicts. More information does not change behavior.

Micro reading of the Bible will get you better at drills, but it rarely transforms your life.

If you are looking to read the Bible, we may start with a Micro lens, but Christianity is about teaching our Micro-selves to embrace our Macro-selves.

Bees see the world differently. They will go to hell...

2012-01-03T06:00:00.000-06:00

As you know, bats rely on ultrasonic waves in order to understand the world. In fact is is all they can use to understand the world. If you were to ask a bat about what they "see" they would describe it rather differently than the way you and I would "see" something as we use a small bit of ultraviolet light to "see".

Bees on the other hand use ultraviolet light, but they see differently than humans do.

What humans see and what bees see.

Snakes use infrared light.

A tick picks up on butyric acid and temperature, while ghost fish picks up on electrical fields.

We have this assumption that if human beings were given the "proper" information then they will "see" the correct and most logical conclusion. So people on different sides try to lay out arguments so that others can "see" where they are coming from in order to come to the same "logical" conclusion. When the other person does not come to the same conclusion, they are idiots, or wrong, or going to hell (the punishment is related to your level of religiosity it seems).

But no one thinks bees and bats and snakes are going to hell because they do not see the world like we do.

So just two things: 1) who is to say that there is more out there to be seen and we just cannot observe it yet (we did not even know that these animals "see" the world differently until very recently and with the use of technology) and 2) bees, bats, and snakes see the world differently - that does not mean they are idiots, wrong or going to hell.

What Little Miss Sunshine taught me about Church

2012-01-01T06:00:00.000-06:00

Marcel Proust is someone I know nothing about. I feel like I should because he is acclaimed to be a rather well known author who wrote about memory in a seven part series, entitled Remembrance of Things Past.

In fact the extent of my knowledge of Proust is what I learned from Steve Carell's character in Little Miss Sunshine.

With that said, I encountered this line from Proust not too long ago about memory:

"(Memory) would come like a rope let down from heaven to draw me up out of the abyss of not-being".

Each week the Church gathers together for a number of things, but in part to remember.

When we remember the Story of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, we are given once again a rope to draw us up out the the abyss of not-being. Each week we come together to discover again, for the first time, what it means to be a "being".

While it is an interesting story, it would be hellish to never have a memory. Movies like 50 First Dates or Memento are great to watch but I would not wish my enemy into that state of memory limbo. Amnesia is a horrible thing to witness and if you do not believe me just ask anyone who has witnessed a loved one suffer from Alzheimer's disease. Or just ask Clive.

The Church comes together each week to stave off group amnesia or collective Alzheimer's. We remember and we are pulled from that abyss. We remember and we are once again home. We remember and we are no longer alone. We remember and we are found.

IsItOld.com, Tom and Jerry and Christianity

2011-12-30T06:00:00.000-06:00

There is this little site called is it old. What it does is you plug a link into the search bar, it will search for how long that link has been around and then give you a report of how old that link is. So while you may have just found this video of a tribe that has never had outside contact before (and it is still fascinating each time I watch it), according to is it old, this video is "really old".

What is nice about isitiold.com is that before I send a video out, I can sort of see if I am late to the party or not. It is like seeing a movie years after it has come out. No one wants to talk about Forrest Gump anymore. Even if you have just seen it for the first time.

Can you see where this is going with the way the Church proclaims the Gospel?

Each Sunday churches around the world have an opportunity to preach Good News to the world. And the problem is each week the Good News is presented in worship in such a way that, if it were plugged into isitold.com it would come back as "really old".

We tell the same story in the same ways that people can say "I get the gist of it" and walk away just fine without it. I do not need to see any more Tom and Jerry shows to "get the gist" of what is going on - Tom tries to capture the illusive Jerry.

People I encounter tell me that Christianity is nice because it teaches a good moral code or that it lays a good foundation for morality. Self-sacrifice, love, peace, reconciliation... I get the gist of what Christianity is about. I do not need to participate in a worshiping community to know what is being taught in the faith.

Christianity needs teachers and preachers who are willing and able to proclaim the Gospel in such a way that it captures the imagination of people once again. We need to stop preaching Tom and Jerry sermons, people get the gist of that rather quickly. No one tells their friends they need to see the new Tom and Jerry show because that way of telling the cat and mouse Story is really old. However, people told me that I needed to see the latest cat and mouse story out there.

MLK Christmas Eve Sermon on Peace

2011-12-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

Dr. King first deliveredthis sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he served as co-pastor. OnChristmas Eve, 1967, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired this sermon aspart of the seventh annual Massey Lectures. (Highlights added)

Peace on Earth...

This Christmas season finds us a ratherbewildered human race. We have neither peace within nor peace without.Everywhere paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Ourworld is sick with war; everywhere we turn we see its ominous possibilities.And yet, my friends, the Christmas hope for peace and good will toward all mencan no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If wedon't have good will toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by themisuse of our own instruments and our own power. Wisdom born of experienceshould tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war servedas a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, butthe very destructive power of modern weapons of warfare eliminates even thepossibility that war may any longer serve as a negative good. And so, if weassume that life is worth living, if we assume that mankind has a right tosurvive, then we must find an alternative to war and so let us this morningexplore the conditions for peace. Let us this morning think anew on the meaningof that Christmas hope: "Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men." Andas we explore these conditions, I would like to suggest that modern man reallygo all out to study the meaning of nonviolence, its philosophy and itsstrategy.

We have experimented with themeaning of nonviolence in our struggle for racial justice in the United States,but now the time has come for man to experiment with nonviolence in all areasof human conflict, and that means nonviolence on an international scale.

Now let me suggest first that if weare to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather thansectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and ournation; and this means we must develop a world perspective. No individual canlive alone; no nation can live alone, and as long as we try, the more we aregoing to have war in this world. Now the judgment of God is upon us, and wemust either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perishtogether as fools.

Yes, as nations and individuals, weare interdependent. I have spoken to you before of our visit to India someyears ago. It was a marvelous experience; but I say to you this morning thatthere were those depressing moments. How can one avoid being depressed when onesees with one's own eyes evidences of millions of people going to bed hungry atnight? How can one avoid being depressed when one sees with ones own eyesthousands of people sleeping on the sidewalks at night? More than a millionpeople sleep on the sidewalks of Bombay every night; more than half a millionsleep on the sidewalks of Calcutta every night. They have no houses to go into.They have no beds to sleep in. As I beheld these conditions, something withinme cried out: "Can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned?"And an answer came: "Oh, no!" And I started thinking about the factthat right here in our country we spend millions of dollars every day to storesurplus food; and I said to myself: "I know where we can store that foodfree of charge? in the wrinkled stomachs of the millions of God's children inAsia, Africa, Latin America, and even in our own nation, who go to bed hungryat night."

It really boils down to this: thatall life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network ofmutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects onedirectly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of theinterrelated structure of reality. Did you ever stop to think that you can'tleave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most of the world?You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the sponge,and that's handed to you by a Pacific islander. You reach for a bar of soap,and that's given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into thekitchen to drink your coffee for the morning, and that's poured into your cupby a South American. And maybe you want tea: that's poured into your cup by aChinese. Or maybe you're desirous of having cocoa for breakfast, and that'spoured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over for your toast,and that's given to you at the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not tomention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning,you've depended on more than half of the world. This is the way our universe isstructured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren't going to have peace onearth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of allreality.

Now let me say, secondly, that if weare to have peace in the world, men and nations must embrace the nonviolentaffirmation that ends and means must cohere. One of the great philosophicaldebates of history has been over the whole question of means and ends. Andthere have always been those who argued that the end justifies the means, thatthe means really aren't important. The important thing is to get to the end,you see.

So, if you're seeking to develop ajust society, they say, the important thing is to get there, and the means arereally unimportant; any means will do so long as they get you there? they maybe violent, they may be untruthful means; they may even be unjust means to ajust end. There have been those who have argued this throughout history. But wewill never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends arenot cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making,and the end in process, and ultimately you can't reach good ends through evilmeans, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.

It's one of the strangest thingsthat all the great military geniuses of the world have talked about peace. Theconquerors of old who came killing in pursuit of peace, Alexander, JuliusCaesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, were akin in seeking a peaceful world order.If you will read Mein Kampf closely enough, you will discover that Hitlercontended that everything he did in Germany was for peace. And the leaders of theworld today talk eloquently about peace. Every time we drop our bombs in NorthVietnam, President Johnson talks eloquently about peace. What is the problem?They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one daywe must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but thatit is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful endsthrough peaceful means. All of this is saying that, in the final analysis,means and ends must cohere because the end is preexistent in the means, andultimately destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.

Now let me say that the next thingwe must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and good willtoward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life.Every man is somebody because he is a child of God. And so when we say"Thou shalt not kill," we're really saying that human life is toosacred to be taken on the battlefields of the world. Man is more than a tinyvagary of whirling electrons or a wisp of smoke from a limitless smoldering.Man is a child of God, made in His image, and therefore must be respected assuch. Until men see this everywhere, until nations see this everywhere, we willbe fighting wars. One day somebody should remind us that, even though there maybe political and ideological differences between us, the Vietnamese are ourbrothers, the Russians are our brothers, the Chinese are our brothers; and oneday we've got to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. But in Christthere is neither Jew nor Gentile. In Christ there is neither male nor female.In Christ there is neither Communist nor capitalist. In Christ, somehow, thereis neither bound nor free. We are all one in Christ Jesus. And when we trulybelieve in the sacredness of human personality, we won't exploit people, wewon't trample over people with the iron feet of oppression, we won't killanybody.

There are three words for"love" in the Greek New Testament; one is the word "eros."Eros is a sort of esthetic, romantic love. Plato used to talk about it a greatdeal in his dialogues, the yearning of the soul for the realm of the divine.And there is and can always be something beautiful about eros, even in itsexpressions of romance. Some of the most beautiful love in all of the world hasbeen expressed this way.

Then the Greek language talks about"philia," which is another word for love, and philia is a kind ofintimate love between personal friends. This is the kind of love you have forthose people that you get along with well, and those whom you like on thislevel you love because you are loved.

Then the Greek language has anotherword for love, and that is the word "agape." Agape is more thanromantic love, it is more than friendship. Agape is understanding, creative,redemptive good will toward all men. Agape is an overflowing love which seeksnothing in return. Theologians would say that it is the love of God operatingin the human heart. When you rise to love on this level, you love all men notbecause you like them, not because their ways appeal to you, but you love thembecause God loves them. This is what Jesus meant when he said, "Love yourenemies." And I'm happy that he didn't say, "Like your enemies,"because there are some people that I find it pretty difficult to like. Likingis an affectionate emotion, and I can't like anybody who would bomb my home. Ican't like anybody who would exploit me. I can't like anybody who would trampleover me with injustices. I can't like them. I can't like anybody who threatensto kill me day in and day out. But Jesus reminds us that love is greater thanliking. Love is understanding, creative, redemptive good will toward all men.And I think this is where we are, as a people, in our struggle for racialjustice. We can't ever give up. We must work passionately and unrelentingly forfirst-class citizenship. We must never let up in our determination to remove everyvestige of segregation and discrimination from our nation, but we shall not inthe process relinquish our privilege to love.

I've seen too much hate to want tohate, myself, and I've seen hate on the faces of too many sheriffs, too manywhite citizens' councilors, and too many Klansmen of the South to want to hate,myself; and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden tobear. Somehow we must be able to stand up before our most bitter opponents andsay: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity toendure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to uswhat you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obeyyour unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-cooperation withevil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, and so throw usin jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children,and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetratorsof violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on somewayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you.Send your propaganda agents around the country, and make it appear that we arenot fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, and we'll still love you.But be assured that we'll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one daywe will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will soappeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, andour victory will be a double victory."

If there is to be peace on earth andgood will toward men, we must finally believe in the ultimate morality of theuniverse, and believe that all reality hinges on moral foundations. Somethingmust remind us of this as we once again stand in the Christmas season and thinkof the Easter season simultaneously, for the two somehow go together. Christcame to show us the way. Men love darkness rather than the light, and they crucifiedhim, and there on Good Friday on the cross it was still dark, but then Eastercame, and Easter is an eternal reminder of the fact that the truth-crushedearth will rise again. Easter justifies Carlyle in saying, "No lie canlive forever." And so this is our faith, as we continue to hope for peaceon earth and good will toward men: let us know that in the process we havecosmic companionship.

In 1963, on a sweltering Augustafternoon, we stood in Washington, D.C., and talked to the nation about many things.Toward the end of that afternoon, I tried to talk to the nation about a dreamthat I had had, and I must confess to you today that not long after talkingabout that dream I started seeing it turn into a nightmare. I remember thefirst time I saw that dream turn into a nightmare, just a few weeks after I hadtalked about it. It was when four beautiful, unoffending, innocent Negro girlswere murdered in a church in Birmingham, Alabama. I watched that dream turninto a nightmare as I moved through the ghettos of the nation and saw my blackbrothers and sisters perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of avast ocean of material prosperity, and saw the nation doing nothing to grapplewith the Negroes' problem of poverty. I saw that dream turn into a nightmare asI watched my black brothers and sisters in the midst of anger andunderstandable outrage, in the midst of their hurt, in the midst of theirdisappointment, turn to misguided riots to try to solve that problem. I sawthat dream turn into a nightmare as I watched the war in Vietnam escalating,and as I saw so-called military advisors, sixteen thousand strong, turn intofighting soldiers until today over five hundred thousand American boys arefighting on Asian soil. Yes, I am personally the victim of deferred dreams, ofblasted hopes, but in spite of that I close today by saying I still have adream, because, you know, you can't give up in life. If you lose hope, somehowyou lose that vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be,that quality that helps you go on in spite of all. And so today I still have adream.

I have a dream that one day men willrise up and come to see that they are made to live together as brothers. Istill have a dream this morning that one day every Negro in this country, everycolored person in the world, will be judged on the basis of the content of hischaracter rather than the color of his skin, and every man will respect thedignity and worth of human personality. I still have a dream that one day theidle industries of Appalachia will be revitalized, and the empty stomachs ofMississippi will be filled, and brotherhood will be more than a few words atthe end of a prayer, but rather the first order of business on everylegislative agenda. I still have a dream today that one day justice will rolldown like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream. I still have a dreamtoday that in all of our state houses and city halls men will be elected to gothere who will do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with their God. I stillhave a dream today that one day war will come to an end, that men will beattheir swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, that nationswill no longer rise up against nations, neither will they study war any more. Istill have a dream today that one day the lamb and the lion will lie down together and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shallbe afraid. I still have a dream today that one day every valley shall beexalted and every mountain and hill will be made low, the rough places will bemade smooth and the crooked places straight, and the glory of the Lord shall berevealed, and all flesh shall see it together. I still have a dream that withthis faith we will be able to adjourn the councils of despair and bring newlight into the dark chambers of pessimism. With this faith we will be able tospeed up the day when there will be peace on earth and good will toward men. Itwill be a glorious day, the morning stars will sing together, and the sons ofGod will shout for joy.

Have yourself a prophetic Christmas

2011-12-22T06:00:00.000-06:00

There is a drawer in our home that houses plastic and paper bags we get from the store when we forget to bring our own. This drawer is opened and bags are placed into it and then we close it, with intentions of using those bags one day. Classic "junk drawer" behavior.

The other day I put a bag into that drawer only to discover that the drawer is very full. Not wanting to deal with this at all, but identifying I must, I pulled the drawer out and saw there were not only bags housed in the drawer but also a good number of carpenter ants. So, after seeing this, and not wanting the ants to eat out parts of my home like termites, I had to act.

This is what the light does. It exposes things that we may not see even when we look at something with regularity.

Christmas is that time in which the Light of God comes into the world. And much like the drawer in my home, the Light of Christmas exposes things that we might not want to see or deal with at that time (war, rape, LGBT, etc.)

Macy's is great at redirecting light in order to show you only what they want you to see. Sales, Santa, Smiles. The Church's mission is to work with the Light to expel darkness. This is the role of the prophet.

The great thing about Christmas is there is an opportunity to see things that we have not seen before. That is, thanks to the Light, we are able to see more than just bags, we can see the ants. This is why when Jesus begins his ministry he begins with calling people to repent. That is to say, that when the Light shines it is easy to see where we have failed and since we can now see our failings we have an opportunity to do something about it.

I wish you the very best Christmas. I hope that we are all moved not only to deal with cleaning out the 'baggage' in our personal drawers, but also have the courage to deal with the other issues of the world that have been in the dark.

Top Ten Googled words

2011-12-19T09:56:00.000-06:00

Google released their top search words for 2011. Here are the top ten:

10- iPad 2 (if you are 37+ years old and reading this blog, you have a 64% chance of having one)
9- Steve Jobs (genius)
8- TEPCO (Japan reactor that melted down)
7- Adele (musician)
6- iPhone 5 (have you heard of this phone that Apple has?)
5- Battlefield 3 (video game)
4- Casey Anthony (Florida mother accused of murdering her child)
3- Ryan Dunn (From Jackass who died in a car crash of all things)
2- Google+ (mostly searching for invites or digital migration steps from facebook or "is this another social network I have to learn? Crap."

And of course the number one most Googled term of 2011 as released by Google -

1- Rebecca Black (had a viral hit video called "Friday")

I am sure you can catch the irony of people using Google to discover information about Apple (a competitor of Google).

50% of this list are people. For some reason this made me think of this line credited to Eleanor Roosevelt, "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

Are we doing the wrong work out?

2011-12-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

Recently I learned from a physical trainer that many people work out hard and feel like they are getting closer to their goals of physical fitness but in reality are not. He shared this autobiographical story of when he was younger he would participate in professional fighting (karate and the like, not like Fight Club or MMA).

In the short rounds he would fight he would grow tired. So after the fights he would train by running long distances in order to build endurance. After several of these long runs, he would discover that the next fight he would be just as winded. So more running. What he later discovered after he studied and science exposed, is that in order to build stamina for the fights, he should not have been running long distances but rather many sprints. His distance runs would build his aerobic system but not his anaerobic system.

Bottom line, all that long distance runs were hard workout and he felt like he was getting closer to his goal (lasting the fights without becoming winded) but in reality he was not.

So too in the world of spiritual formation, we are working hard and feel like we are moving toward our goal however we really are not.

Ironically to the metaphor above, many people run spiritual sprints and think they are moving toward a strong spiritual life, when in reality we need to be running long distances.

We attend worship one time a week. Maybe we pray at dinner. Perhaps we fast from eating food on Ash Wednesday. We read the Bible one time a week. We pass out soup at Thanksgiving and adopt a child at Christmas. They are hard work and they make us feel like we are growing toward our goal of faithfulness. The thing is, while good, these things are sprints. Taken alone they contribute to a faith that is a mile wide and an inch deep.

This is why for many people the practice of giving up something for the season of Lent is such a difficult task. Lent really is more of a marathon than a sprint. For 40 days Christians engage in some combination of spiritual disciplines. Doing something everyday for more than a week is something that is contrary to the instant culture we live in. We live in a culture where 140 characters is the limit of our willingness to engage an issue. When you hear of someone doing P90X, we tend to think those people are 'intense'. Only the really hardcore people can go three months working out!

The tricky thing is that running spiritual sprints feels like we are working out and growing spiritually. It is difficult to realize that by only working on sprints we are not going to make it through the marathon of life.

If you find you are regularly stressed out, worried, anxious, nervous about the future, seeking to control all things, fearful, angry about things you later realize were silly, or think that everyone else is an idiot then all while trying to fit in ways to better yourself - then perhaps you are sprinting when you ought to be considering distance running.

"A veneer of sincerity"

2011-12-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

The following conversation snip-it came out of a much larger conversation I had with a very interesting fella who trains professional baseball players here in Fort Worth:

"Fort Worth seems to have a veneer of sincerity." he said as I took a sip of my coffee.

"Really, in what way?" I responded as the cup landed on the saucer a bit harder than normally expected.

A smile came across his face. "Fort Worth is a place where I have gotten the sense that someone will look me in the eye, tell me that they are glad that I am here and even listen to my opinions, all while thinking, 'Bless your heart! You are a total dumb ass and you are probably going to hell.' The sincerity is just a veneer to reality."

---

I could not help but think about his comments and the Church.

It is said of many worshiping communities that they are friendly but not hospitable. The Bara Group has put out a couple of books that talk about the Church and young adults.

I wonder if the friendliness in the church is any different from the veneer of sincerity that has been this guy's experience of Fort Worth?

What can Christianity do to ensure that we are building disciples that are more like:

this and less like this?

Glimpse into Christmas Eve Worship genesis

2011-12-12T09:38:00.000-06:00

Christmas Eve - Becoming God-bearers

On Christmas Eve at Grace United Methodist Church Reverend Nancy Allen and I will be facilitating worship at Noon. For those who are looking to attend worship at that time, and even for those who may not be, I wanted to share the order of worship as well as a commentary on why we are doing what we are doing.

The order of worship is in bold and the commentary is italicized.

***

Welcome

Simple words to remind the community as to why we are gathered.

Word to the Order of Worship

The focus of worship this day is to embody the life of Mary, who was the original God-bearer. The scripture we will look at today will call us to consider an episode of Mary's life in which over a short period of time she moves through a number of different postures. Today we are going to invite you to embody these postures of Mary in order to strive to teach us or remind us how to begin to become God-bearers.

Mary Did You Know?

Sung as a way of getting us to reflect on the life of Mary. The riff of "Mary did you know, that your baby boy" will be recalled later in worship - I will refer to this riff as "MDYK riff"

Lighting of the Advent Wreath

This ritual is to tie us into a tradition that is much larger than our local community. We are tied into Christians around the globe and around time. We light the center light in order to remind us that tonight the light of God comes into the world and darkness and death are destroyed.

Prayer

This is a pastoral prayer which calls us to peace, reconciliation, light and grace for our lives and the world.

Worship in Songs

O Come All Ye Faithful

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

What Child is This?

Prayer

Pie Jesu

Scripture - Luke 1:26-38

Message - “Becoming God-bearers”

We are exploring Mary as the original God-bearer and the different postures she might have taken in hearing that she would bear God. As you read the scripture, you can get the sense Mary might have moved through 4 different postures/mindsets. As such we are asking everyone to also physically embody these postures in a way to emulate Mary the God-bearer.
First posture - cover head with hands - Mary felt that she was not worthy to bear God, that she was just a mortal that was not worthy of such a task. This posture of humility will be our posture of repentance.
Second posture - open palms and looking up - Mary heard that she was not the sum of her faults or 'just a human' rather that she was a beloved chosen one of God. This posture of affirmation will be our posture of worth.
Third posture - kneeling - Mary heard that she would bear the son of God and that she would be called blessed for generations to come. Mary took the time to listen to the message of God. This posture is our posture of listening.
Final posture - palms together and fingertips at mouth as though one were praying - At the conclusion of the episode with Mary and the angel, scripture shared that Mary pondered these things in her heart. We too will ponder what it means to be God-bearers in our time and the coming of the Light into the world. This is the posture of reflection.

Sharing of the Light and singing Silent Night

Blessing and Benediction

***

If you are seeking a worship opportunity that is earlier in the day on Christmas Eve that is not built around a lengthy sermon but focused on embodying the gift of being God-bearers, I invite you to attend Grace UMC at noon.

Little drummer boy

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

Little Drummer Boy is my favorite Christmas song. I know that it is not liturgically correct in that the song puts the drummer boy at the center of the action and not the Christ, however I still love the response the boy has to the child. There is something simply elegant to have anyone bring their simple gifts to the betterment of humanity - even if it is just drumming ever so humbly. This song speaks to my missional theology in that it is good to worship, however if that worship does not lead to action and response, then the worship is hollow. This boy brings his gifts onto the scene as a response to the Christ. So to are Christians to bring our gifts in response to what God has and is doing in the world. In honor of the drummer boy, I submit to you some drumming via the interwebs.

Personal not private

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000-06:00

It is important to Protestant theology that we talk about having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This phrase has been used to beat people over the head. The phrase "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" is a red flag or a deal breaker for some people who hear it are instantly turned off to further conversation.

The idea of a personal relationship with Jesus is, for me, just a way of saying that we think knowing Jesus is a wonderful thing and spending time with the message of Jesus and the way of Jesus leads to wholeness and healing.

This would be an example of a PRIVATE space invader

It is worth noting that a personal relationship with Jesus is not the same as a private relationship with Jesus.

To be as simple as I can be on this, personal is collective while private is individual.

Many have personal time to take off from work (communal), but how that time is spent specifically private (individual).

We all have personal space (communal) but everyone has private understanding of how close to to close (individual).

A personal relationship with Jesus means that you are involved in a relationship which millions of people have engaged in. A personal relationship leads people to engage the world around us. A personal relationship with Jesus means that we go into the world (communal). Personal relationship with Jesus, by definition, is communal.

When something is personal we are pursuing a quest that address the goals of others. Personal goals are goals that others can connect with.

I have a personal goal for peace, however for peace to happen it requires other people.

Private goals however are just that, private. They are individual goals that require no other persons.

I have a personal goal to write in this blog regularly. I have a personal goal to paint some of my Warhammer miniatures.

Personal is not private.

Kids and CEO's fail the marshmallow test

2011-12-02T06:00:00.000-06:00

You may have seen this little test before, I cannot recall if I posted it or not. If you have seen it then feel free to move along the post. If not, take the three minutes.

So I laugh at this as I watch the kids struggle with the "choice" in part because it is a silly choice, but mostly because I see this as a rather easy choice. Logically it makes sense and is almost a 'no brainer' to just wait for that second marshmallow. You double your marshmallowly-goodness.

Any grown person would know this to be the case. I laugh because I think that this test would not "work" on adults. Adults would wait. Adults are rational. Adults understand the significant increase of marshmallow by waiting just a bit.

And then this little gem comes into my world and I am flabbergasted. Essentially someone created a marshmallow test for adults. And not just any adults. The adults who are calling the shots at some of the largest companies in the world. And guess what? They were not interested in more marshmallowly-goodness.

At least they were not willing to wait for it.

As reported by GOOD in this post the researchers, "found that the majority of FTSE-100 and 250 executives (those running the largest companies in the world) would choose an investment with a low return option if they could get it sooner (£250,000, or about $390,000, tomorrow) rather than waiting for a high return later (£450,000, or about $706,320, in three years). That means that your investment advisor might give up £200,000 of profit if they had to wait three years to get it."

The researchers called this "short-termism".

So while I laugh at the kids who struggle with what seems to be a no-brainer of a question, I am humbled by the fact that even sophisticated, educated, developed, and highly evolved human adults (read: people like you and me) are all tempted at that one marshmallow even with the promise of two in a little while.

For more reading on self-control, delayed gratification and short-termism - this 2009 New Yorker article is great.

For a final treat, check out how well these dogs are trained at delaying their gratification.

Is the UMC set up to suffer from social loafing?

2011-12-01T06:00:00.000-06:00

The UMC is a connectional Church which means a number of things. So clergy are appointed by bishops and not hired by local congregations, each local church pays apportionments which fund global ministries, clergy benefits are grouped together in order to get a "group rate" and many other points of connection. In many ways you might say the UMC is one big group working on the same mission. Each church is a local 'franchise' of the larger Church so even if one local church closes the larger Church is not at huge risk of collapse. Unlike say the Crystal Cathedral which when it closed so did that entire Church.

I love the connection of the UMC, it is in part why I am a UMC minister. In light of a recent book, You are Not so Smart (of which I hope to blog about for a few posts in the coming days) has made me wonder if the thing that makes the UMC strong and global is in fact the very thing that is leading to the recent rise of the church freaking out about "metrics".

Some would say the rise of concern of counting the butts, baptisms and bucks is connected to the trend of a dying denomination. Perhaps. Some would say the rise of counting metrics is in response to a world that is driven by numbers and economics more than generations before. Perhaps. Some might argue that we might not even care about these metrics if the church was blowin' and goin' and able to meet budgets across the board. Perhaps.

I wonder if the metrics buzz is a result of the connectionalism.

In You are not so Smart, there is a chapter titled, "Social Loafing" in which argues that we have a misconception about group work. That is we believe that when we are joined by others in a task, we work harder and become more accomplished, however in reality, once we are a part of a group, we tend put in less effort because we know our work will be pooled with others'.

Could it be the fact that the UMC has pooled our efforts together for so long that we who sit in the pews believe we do not have to work as hard or give as much because it will be pooled together and either be diluted or 'covered by' other people who are giving and working.

This overall thought that our individual slacking or lackluster work has then become the catalyst for a church in demise. We all think someone else is going to cover the bill or pay the apportionments, but in reality no one is.

So our Church goes into decline.

We loose money and staff and members and then we have a negative feedback loop.

In a time when 1 in 4 Millennials do not associate with any religious tradition, if members of the UMC want the Church to survive then we ought to be aware that our social loafing is no longer going to cut it.

Florence and the Machine - captivating for some reason

2011-11-26T16:58:00.001-06:00

I am way late to the Florence and the Machine scene, and in many ways just posting that I enjoy the music may out me as lame at selecting music. So be it.

Ever since seeing these two songs on SNL the other week, I cannot get enough of them.

These widgets come courteous of the Grooveshark website.No Light, No Light by Florence + The Machine on GroovesharkShake It Out by Florence + The Machine on Grooveshark

I would post the videos, but they are weird as hell and I just do not understand all that is going on in them.

Where are the other nine?

2011-11-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

There is a scripture that tells of a story in which Jesus encountered ten lepers who cried out to be healed. Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priests and, the story shares, the people were healed along the way. One of these people who was healed along the way returns back to Jesus and thanks him. Jesus asks where the other nine? I do not know, but one could conjecture a few ideas on why these people did not thank Jesus.

Perhaps one person ran and told all the people she could.
Perhaps one person just plain forgot.
Perhaps one person could not find Jesus who was traveling across the land.
Perhaps one person one ran home to connect with his family.
Perhaps one person discovered a way to make money off the miracle.
Perhaps one person became a priest who felt a call after their mountain top experience.
Perhaps one person was just shocked and immobilized.
Perhaps one person just did not know how to thank Jesus.
Perhaps one person was so self-involved that he believed that he deserved to be healed and did not see a need to thank Jesus.

This text is often used to discuss that we ought to have an "attitude of gratitude" or how we ought to give thanks for our blessings.

And this is not a bad or wrong interpretation.

What I was considering the other day about this text is how the ones who did not return were all still convinced of the purity codes of their day. That is to say, they go to their priests who are symbols of the religious authorities and ones who could declare people "clean" or not. As such when those who went to the priests were ones who still affirmed the religious order of their day.

They still believed that there could be unclean people who ought to be separated from the clean people. While they were now clean, they themselves still bought into the idea that society could declare some people inferior. Perhaps they would even encounter another "unclean" person and stay away from them.

However, the one who returned to Jesus was the one who did may not have said thank you (the text says he only prostrated himself before Jesus). We can be certain though, that the one who returned rejected the system of declaring people clean and unclean. This one, did show himself to the Great Priest, and in doing so made a statement that he understands what Jesus understands - no one can declare another person subhuman. No one is unclean in the sight of God. No one is allowed to lord himself over others in such a way to perpetuate a discriminatory system.

Perhaps this is why Jesus asks where the other nine are? Perhaps Jesus is disappointed to see that only one in ten got his message and rejected the powers that be.

All ten were healed, but only one was set free. Only one broke away from the system that creates more unclean people.

Only one.

1in 3 Americans either poor or near poor

2011-11-21T09:07:00.001-06:00

According to a NY Times over 50 million people are just above the poverty line.

We are talking 50 million in poverty and 50 million just above that line, and if the math is right, that is 100 million people in or dangerously near poverty.

1 in 3 people in the "land of plenty" are not in a land of plenty.

To put this into a different lens, the richest 400 Americans have the collective wealth of the bottom 50% of Americans.

Science supporting Jesus?

2011-11-19T23:09:00.001-06:00

There is this idea in our culture that if you are angry then you need to pop off or let of steam. This idea excuses a number of behaviors of people in relationships. I cannot express how many people I hear (myself included) say, "I just needed to get this off my chest" or "I just need to yell and get this anger out." If you have ever thought that popping off in order to release steam then you too have, at least one time, bought into the idea that letting off steam alleviates anger.

And it does. Which is why we do it.

The issue is that letting off steam in this way may make us feel better but it never stops us from having to let of more steam in the future.

Take this little bit from You are Not so Smart. Please note that it takes a bit of set up to get to the interesting stuff, but we have to see the set up before we can get into it. So first the set up:

"In the 1990s, psychologist Brad Bushman at Iowa State decided to study whether or not venting actually worked. He divided 180 students into 3 groups. One group read a neutral article. One group read an article about a fake study that said venting anger was effective. The third group read about a fake study that said venting was pointless. He then had students write essays for or against abortion, a subject about which they probably had strong feelings. He told them the essays would be graded by fellow students, but they weren't. When the students got their essays back, half were told their essays were superb. The other half had this scrawled across the paper: "This is one of the worst essays I have ever read!" Bushman then asked the subjects to pick an activity like playing a game, watching some comedy, reading a story, or punching a bag. The results? The people who read the article that said venting worked, and who later got angry, were far more likely to ask to punch the bag than those who got angry in the other groups. In all the groups., the people who got praised tended to pick non-aggressive activities."

No big shocker there. When we are told by an authority that some behavior is good/not good for us then we tend to heed that advice. While this is no surprise, it might be worth taking note that this also creates feedback loops. If we are told "venting" is good then we will more likely seek out opportunities to do it, and if we are told "venting" is not good then we will seek out other ways to deal with anger.

Now onto the interesting part in which another experiment is created like the first but with a twist, in which the group that was told their essay was the worst essay the grader ever read was then divided in half and and were told they were going to have to compete against the person who graded their essay. "One group first had to punch a bag, and the other group had to sit and wait for two minutes. After punching and waiting, the competition began. The game was simple: Press a button as fast as you can. If you lose, you get blasted with a horrible noise. When you win, your opponent gets blasts. The students could set the volume the other person had to endure, a setting between zero and ten, with ten being 105 decibels. Can you predict what they discovered? On average, the punching bag group set the volume as high as 8.5. The time-out group set it to 2.47. The people who got angry didn't release their anger on the punching bag-their anger was sustained by it."

This may be common sense to you. It may not be. For generations Christianity has taught about loving the neighbor who is sometimes also your enemy. Forgiveness is critical to the life of the Christian. Jesus is said to have spoken words of forgiveness while on the cross.

It is good to see that science is catching up :)

Moving closer to Truth

2011-11-19T06:00:00.000-06:00

Science classes in grade school taught a distilled version of the "scientific method" which consisted of a few steps:

Generate hypothesis
Test hypothesis
Evaluate results
Hypothesis confirmed or rejected
Repeat

The thing I have forgotten about is that in science, one moves closer to Truth by seeking evidence that is contrary to the hypothesis.

This is often the exact opposite in the world of religion. We tend to think we are moving closer to Truth by seeking evidence that supports our hypothesis. That is we have an experience then we look for other things to support our interpretation of that experience. Protestant Christians generally seek out some supportive Scripture.

What we Christians are not very good at is entertaining and seeing evidence to the contrary to our claims. Much of our time is constantly supplying evidence that only supports our claims.

Perhaps a way to move closer to the way non-theists see the world is to begin to invert the way we seek to "justify" Truth. Instead of constantly giving more and more supportive "evidence" to a truth claim, what would it look like to seek out contrary evidence?

What would it look like to see this evidence to the contrary and use that evidence as a starting place for a conversation?

Jesus was a guy who provided evidence to the contrary understanding of the truth claims of the religious authorities of his day.

"God says do not work on the Sabbath." - Truth claim of authorities

"Should we not pull our donkey out of the ditch and save it's life even on the Sabbath?" - evidence to the contrary by Jesus.

"Well perhaps we do not sully understand God's desires for Sabbath." - responsible response of authorities

"Jesus is an a-hole and we should kill this guy." - popular response of authorities

The rule is that other rules are respected

2011-11-17T06:00:00.000-06:00

There is some anxiety with some folk about the idea of "post-modern" thought. I am not sure where this anxiety is rooted and I am not that smart to understand all the nuanced philosophical arguments that people can articulate and understand about different "isms". Recently I came across a bit of a metaphor that helps me understand post-modern a little better which I want to share and keep for later reference.

This metaphor is rooted in the understanding of the "arts" (of which I am not the most informed so hang with me).

My wife shares with me that Classical music has certain rules that composers had to follow. So if you were going to do one thing in the musical composition, then you were required to do something else. Certain harmonies are 'allowed' and others are not. This is in part why, I think, classical music will not have a chord that you hear in jazz music. Speaking of jazz, it operates the same way. If you are working under the rules of jazz, then you have to honor those rules of the art.

In the world of the visual arts, if you were painting in the modern age, then you also had rules that you followed. I am not sure what those rules are (thus my lack of knowledge in the arts), but you might be able to see these "rules" applied to impressionist art. These visual arts, when you were working under these different 'rules', had requirements that you obliged by and honored and everyone followed them.

I get this feeling when I see Pollock's art and think, "that is just paint dumped on a canvas, that is not art. I could do that!" My brain is viewing "art" as that which follows a set of rules (which I may not be able to define), and if it violates those rules then I declare it as "not art".

Post-modernism is that time that is upon us that come to the understanding that respects these different sets of "rules". It seems to suggest that we are now no longer limited in our scope of expression and understanding of the world. We now understand that all of these sets of "rules" that exist all have truth in them and no one set of rules has all the truth. There is no one painting that ends the need to have paintings. As great as Dylan was, even Bob Dylan did not end the need to create more music. He did not have exclusive and exhaustive access to music truth.

We live in a time that respects more sets of "rules" in such a way that we no longer require everyone to play by the same set of "rules" in order to paint, compose music or even create theology.

Post-modernism is the rule that respects all the rules.

(Which is why many post-moderns will argue with you when you do not respect all sets of rules.)

Man bites dog...

2011-11-15T06:00:00.000-06:00

"Be careful. People like to be told what they already know. Remember that. They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things... well, new things aren't what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don't want to know that man bites dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. In short, what people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds . . . Not news but olds, telling people that what they think they already know is true. "

—Terry Pratchett, through the character Lord Vetinari from his "The Truth" a Novel of Disworld.

This might help explain why so many people can become offended by alternate theologies.

Open Source Continuing Education

2011-11-12T06:00:00.000-06:00

Another idea I have been working on as a way to encourage clergy to continue in education while also keeping costs down and using the collective expertise/wisdom of the clergy community of the Central Texas Conference.

You can read the beginning proposal of Open Source Class (a working name) here.

My friend Sarah commented that this idea might work (with modifications) for staff development not just at churches but in any organization.

Stewardship as a symptom?

2011-11-10T06:00:00.000-06:00

In the fall, many churches embark on a stewardship campaign.

These campaigns are well and good. There is nothing wrong with getting people to talk about money and pledging and responsible giving - especially in these times of finances being what they are.

However, I wonder (in the back of my mind) if we in the church is focusing on the wrong "ship" when we take a month out of the year to discuss stewardship. There is a parable:

A woman is sitting on the river bank. The woman notices that someone in the river who is caught in the current and cannot swim. Jumping into the water she swims out and pulls the drowning man ashore. She looks again to see another drowning man. Aain, she swims out and pulls him ashore. After several minutes the woman sees another man in the river, and another and another. She rallies the men that she saved to help her pull others out, but there are too many people in the river who are fighting to stay afloat in the current.

Stewardship campaigns can feel like we are jumping in to save the ministries that are struggling to stay afloat. We all jump in and pool our resources and energies to ensure that the ministries survive. We hear from people who have been saving jumping into the river and helping save ministries for years share their stories. And each year we expect that we will get more and more people ashore to help ensure that we do not run out of people on shore to help rescue the drowning.

The thing about stewardship campaigns is that we reinforce the need for people to come ashore to save the drowning. We all feel that the stewardship campaign is important and cannot see why we would not stop. Saving the drowning feels really good.

But I did not share the end of the parable:

After some time, the woman decides to stop jumping into the river and saving people. Everyone is curious to know why the original hero stops saving people.

"Where are you going?! We need you to help us pull people from the river! Don't you see these people are drowning!?" the crowd shouts.

She replies, "I am going to go upstream and stop people from jumping into the river."

What would it look like to place less emphasis on stewardship (rescuing the drowning) and focus on stopping people from jumping into the river in the first place?

I think it would look like a Church that understands stewardship is important but it there is a more important "ship".

If we focus on discipleship first and foremost, I wonder if stewardship takes care of itself. If we focus on discipleship, I wonder if worship takes care of itself? If we focus on stewardship then are we just treating a symptom, much like pulling people from a river, rather than addressing the source of the symptom?

Ministers are Metaphors

2011-11-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

Ministers are metaphors.

This is why when someone steals from a business it is tragic, but when a minister steal from the church it is tragic and horrendous.

This is why when someone is hospitalized the minister is given access to the patient even when others are restricted.

This is why people will leave their home church and follow ministers who move to another church.

Ministers are metaphors in our culture for something else. Ministers are metaphors for God.

This is not saying that ministers are God or even God like. Not at all. However, ministers and the world gets into trouble forgetting that ministers are metaphors.

Ministers who forget that we are metaphors will fall into the trap of believing that we are god. And when we feel like we have "god-like" power and authority we have the potential to do things that are very un-Godly.

When we forget that ministers are metaphors, we have a potential to allow the minister to act in ways that are not becoming of the office of minister.

The next time you see a minister, remember that ministers are metaphors of God. It is not the minister who should be followed but the God they point to.

Is your minister helping you to follow the metaphor they embody? Have you ever forgotten that a minister is a metaphor for God? Do you know of a minister who has forgotten that as well?

How picturing chairs affects your ability to schedule a meeting (part 3)

2011-11-06T06:00:00.000-06:00

The thing about the visualizing chairs and ropes of the previous two posts is that I think there is a loose connection to the way Christians embody time.

The first group was asked to visualize pulling the chair toward them using the rope. When they did, people generally thought that to "move the meeting forward" in time meant to have things move closer to you. To put it another way, when we think of time this way - we are the center. Events or things that "move forward" move closer to us. Human is the center of the universe.

The second group was asked to visualize pulling themselves forward along the rope toward the chair. When they did, people generally thought that to "move the meeting forward" in time meant to have the meeting pushed farther away from the individual. That is to say the event was pushed "forward" into time.

Notice that subtle difference? The first group visualizes the event being pushed forward toward themselves and the other group visualizes the event being pushed forward into time.

Is time happening to you and passing you by (as in when you pull a chair toward you)?

Or are you moving into time (as in when you pull yourself along a rope toward the chair)?

Many of my sister and brothers in the Faith believe that there is a chair out there they call it the end of the world. That date is set and it is getting closer to us. So there are predictions and claims made about this chair that is coming toward us. We are passive observers in this situation in which there is nothing that we can do to keep that chair from getting closer to us. And once that chair has passed us, then there is no way to get it back in front of us. We missed our chance.

I suppose that is one way to consider time.

On the other hand, if we understand that time is something we are pulled into; that we are being pulled along a rope into a future that is not yet set. That events can move toward us (lets take the destruction of the world since we are talking about it), and they can move in response to other things. The world has been on the brink of destruction a few times in the past in which people cried out that the end is near. And yet, here we all are. That chair, that date, has been moved forward into time.

When time is considered in this way, there is always a chance that things can move forward again (even if they have passed us). There is always a chance for a second chance. That chair might have passed us as we were pulled along that rope, but that chair can always be moved "forward" into time and we can see that chair again. Grace is the name Christians call this chair moving forward into time.

Hopefully I am being clear here and not too cerebral, but this has ramifications on the way we see the world.

According to one view of time, time comes toward you and if you miss something, you have missed your chance and there is no way (either in this life or the next) to have a second chance.

According to one view of time, we move into time and if we miss something there is always a chance that what we missed could move forward into time and we could (either in this life or the next) have a second chance.

To bring this series full circle, I ask "Next Wednesday’smeeting has been moved forward two days, What day is themeeting that has been rescheduled?”

(Although, in some instances having a second chance would ruin a hilarious website.)

How picturing chairs affects your ability to schedule a meeting (part 2)

2011-11-04T06:00:00.000-05:00

If you missed last post take a moment to read that. It is cool, we will wait.

Okay now that we are all caught up, the question is howis it that imagining a simple action have an impact on the way we understandtime?

If you were like me it took me a while to figure it out in my head to make sense, but here is what I got.

Imagine you are pulling the chair toward you:

When we do this then the chair/meeting is moving "forward" from Wednesday to Monday.

Conversely if we imagine pulling your self forward along the rope:

The final post in this little series will be an attempt to connect this above study with Christianity. Feel free to make your own connections and leave comments to share.

How picturing chairs affects your ability to schedule a meeting (part 1)

2011-11-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

CurrentlyI am reading I Isan Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How it Shapes the Way You See theWorld by James Geary. If you are alanguage nerd then you may like this book. If you have a PhD in linguistics then this book may be too simple foryou. If you do not completely love theshow “A Way with Words” then thisbook might be a bit boring for you.

However,there are a number of studies in this book that are quite fantastic and thispost is the first of a couple of posts on this particular study on how we embodytime. Here is the study, and you canplay along.

“Participantslooked at a drawing of a chair with a rope attached to it. Half of the subjectsimagined pulling the chair toward themselves with the rope; the other halfimagined sitting in the chair and pulling themselves forward along the rope.”

(If youare playing along, go ahead and pick one of the groups and imagine accordingly).

“Bothgroups then read the statement “Next Wednesday’s meeting has been moved forwardtwo days” and were asked: What day is the meeting that has been rescheduled?”

(If you are still playing along, write downyour answer.)

“Theanswer to the question “What day is the meeting that has been rescheduled?” isnot obvious, because the concept of “forward” in the context of “the future” isambiguous. When the meeting is rescheduled, does it move closer to you or doyou move closer to it?”

If you imagined pulling the chair towardsyourself in the illustration then…

“Participantswho imagined pulling the chair toward themselves more often reported that themeeting had been moved to Monday, consistent with the metaphorical concept thattime moves events toward them.”

If you imagined pulling yourself forward alongthe rope…

“Participantswho imagined pulling themselves along the rope more often reported that themeeting had been rescheduled to Friday, consistent with the concept that anevent is a stationary object toward which time moves them.”

Didthis match up with you? If you imaginedpulling the chair toward you did you answer Monday? If you imagined pulling yourself along therope did you answer Friday?

Thenext post will elaborate a bit more on this idea, but wanted to open this upwith you to ponder this question – how is it that imagining a simple actionhave an impact on the way we understand time?

Unique worship does not dismiss tradition

2011-10-31T16:47:00.000-05:00

It might be assumed that if you create new worship experiences then they will dismiss tradition. This happened with the "seeker-sensitive/contemporary" worship movement. There was a strong effort to remove a lot of Christian language and make it easy on the ears for those who might be seeking Christianity as a faith to live into. So contemporary worship, generally, does not have things like creeds or liturgies or litanies or the like. As such when people think of new worship many people think that this new worship will be anti-tradition.

And when you value being efficient over being unique then that may happen.

This is not the case when you value unique over efficient.

The worship services that are truly unique are those who are able to root themselves in the past while introducing something new. Unique worship services are difficult to replicate and in many ways are often "one and done" worship experiences.

If you have ever seen "Glee" then you know what I am talking about. This show takes the words from common songs but puts them to new music and then you can instantly sing along. You can instantly join in a tradition while at the same time that tradition is brought to life in a different way.

Take this clip for instance. Notice that they build on the tradition of the song and yet bring it a new breath.

If you like it or not this is not the point. Not everyone likes Glee (I do not), Glee is a community (Gleeks) and the music that is created speaks to the Gleek community. Yet, this community, while creating unique music, it is rooted in a tradition that is much bigger than the community. They do not betray the tradition, rather they take the tradition (in this case a Christmas song) and "Gleek it up" to be an unique expression of that tradition in the Gleek community.

Notice that a worship community does not have to be original to be unique. In fact, it is a bit arrogant to think that you can be original in a world of 7 billion people. Rather, worship that values unique over efficient identifies where their community fits into the larger whole while at the same time striving for uniqueness.

In all the efforts to make worship attractive to people, faith communities across the nation have created tract worship experiences that appeal to a broad audience but are ubiquitous and generic. So back to the original question, "What would worship look like if it were driven by millennials and the creative class?"

It would look unique but not original.

It would be ancient and future.

It would be remix and mash up.

It would be culturally located and not difficult to replicate in other locations.

It would connect with a tribe or community but not everyone who encounters it.

It would be something that I could not wait to participate each week.

Unique/Efficient tension

2011-10-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

Last post ended by asking, "Should we not instead look to create a local, homemade, authentic, unique worship expression for this context? What would a worship revival look like if the Millennials fueled it?"

I hinted at in the last post that many "contemporary worship" services look similar to one another. I used the metaphor of tract homes to describe the amount of variety among "contemporary worship" services. There is some, but they all have very similar structure.

Millennials and the creative class are people who value the unique over the efficient. Tract homes and contemporary worship are efficient but rarely unique.

Take music for instance. Contemporary worship will take a tune that is common and write new words to the song. Much like what Charles Wesley did in his attempt to take pub songs and change they words to be more "godly". This is an efficient way to make that which is old new again because it is easier to rewrite the words than to rewrite the musical score.

In contrast, the music in a worship that values unique over efficient will sound differently. It will sound different but you can sing along almost instantly. How? By changing the tune and using common lyrics. This gives rise to the mash-up and the remix.

Notice in this mash up that many people can begin singing right away even if you have never heard this song before. Yes, it is not the best song that will appeal to the masses - but that is not the point. The point is the uniqueness is values more than the repeatably. You may think the scarf your friend knitted is less quality than the nice store bought one, but you might just treasure it more because it is unique. Likewise, mash ups are generally deemed as less quality but unique.

Take the remix as another example of unique over efficient. Remixes are usually take a good amount of time to put together but are not really able to be used for long periods of time. Remixes are current, culturally relevant and quickly fade. Remember this little gem?

Sure you do, but it is no longer what at the level of relevance it once was. It was great for a period of time but now is kinda annoying.

In worship, when we value unique over efficient then worship looks different but not that different. It changes yet there is always something that stays behind to connect or root us in the past (tradition).

The next post will have concluding remarks on this topic.

Contemporary worship and tract homes

2011-10-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

Recently I have been asked about the difference in the contemporary worship and what might be called "ancient/future". I will take a couple of posts to tackle this.

There are a great number of faith communities in our area (and in the U.S.A) that "do" contemporary worship and "do it well". The flow is unique in each setting but generally it has these elements more or less in this order:

Open with 2-4 "praise and worship" songs that are upbeat. One song must be a "slow down" song.
What I call the opening "Salad prayer" - this is the prayer in which the worship leader prays something like, "Father God, just 'let us' give thanks to you. Father God, 'let us' be center our lives upon you and just 'let us'..."
Community announcements given in a casual/comical way
Stand and greet your neighbor time
Scripture reading
Sermon
Offering (with a song sung by band at the front)
1-2 closing songs
Benediction

This is not a "bad" order of worship, it can however feel generic. If you attend a contemporary worship Mississippi then the next week you attend contemporary worship in Washington, then they feel very similar. This sort of "removal" of uniqueness is much like tract homes. They are quick to build and they are great homes, but they all look the same. There is little room for character or local charm. Efficient yes, but not very original.

Please hear me I have nothing against tract homes they are great in that they empower many people to have a home of their own. Likewise, contemporary worship is great for many people to feel empowered to connect with a faith community. The rub is that the "creative class" and the "Millennials" are people who value uniqueness, local and grassroots more than big box, conglomerate, and generic. For instance, the Millennial lifestyle is more inclined to fuel the knitting revival than the generation before them (Gen X).

If we are interested in creating worship opportunities for these growing demographics, then why would we look to create another 'tract worship' in our area? Should we not instead look to create a local, homemade, authentic, unique worship expression for this context? What would a worship revival look like if the Millennials fueled it?

The next post will explore that question more.

Church Growth = "We need more people like us." Really?

2011-10-25T06:00:00.000-05:00

There are efforts in the UMC to talk more about church growth. My cynical side will say that this focus on church growth is because the church is declining in terms of warm bodies in the pew and if the numbers of people in the pews were of the 1950's then we would not focus on church growth.

However, my non-cynical side of me says this is a good thing.

My only issue with this how church growth is defined.

If we define church growth meaning that we need to get more people into pews; that is to say if we define church growth as "getting more people to be like us" and become members - I do not think that is a great way to think of church growth.

Instead of thinking that church growth means "more people need to be like us", perhaps a healthier understanding is "we need to be more like Jesus".

When talking about church growth as primarily as getting more people, we are forgetting that the church is the Body of Christ and even people who are members of a church are part of the body of Christ. Church growth includes those who are already members of the church.

If we redirect all the resources we spend on trying to get more people to be like us to use them on getting us to be more like Christ then the church inevitably grows!

Friends, let us be honest here, if the church is growing by becoming more like Christ not only is the Church growing, but also non-Christians will be more interested in the Christian life.

I am convinced the life of Jesus is more attractive to people than any event or sermon series in the world.

Abundance of critics, prophets are rare

2011-10-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

If one were to read the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, one would quickly see that one of the roles of the prophet is to criticize their current context. For instance take this little gem in which Amos has a word to say to the powerful and rich people of his day:

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan
   who are on Mount Samaria,
who oppress the poor, who crush the needy,
   who say to their husbands, ‘Bring something to drink!’
The Lord God has sworn by his holiness:
   The time is surely coming upon you,
when they shall take you away with hooks,
   even the last of you with fish-hooks.

It is easy for people to critique the world around them. From Tea Party to Occupy to the general "haters", people can critique rather well. In the local church I hear many critiques:

"We spend too much on the building."

"We are hypocritical."

"We so not engage the marginalized."

"We have lame worship."

"We do no have enough members."

"We do not have a good ______ ministry."

You get the idea.

Here is the thing though, anyone can critique. Heck, my three year old son can critique the world around him rather well. His favorite word at times is, "No!'

Never has my son's favorite word been "Yes!"

Maybe we are quick to attach ourselves to the word "No" because we know that there is something wrong with our world. Or maybe it is because it is safer to say "No" than to say anything else.

The Church is at its best when we are able to help people mature from constantly saying "No" and critiquing the world to say "Yes."

We are at our best when we are able to help people move from saying "I am not..." to saying "I am..."

We are at our best when we are able to help society move from saying "We are not..." to saying "We are..."

We are at our best when we help people move from being critics to being prophets.

We are living into the role of the prophet when we are no longer held hostage to the word "No" and the worldview of critique. We are living into the role of the prophet when we are able to see the world for what it is and what it could be rather than what it is not.

Critics are annoying or comical and flash in the pan.

Prophets are cemented into our collective imagination and live forever.

Perhaps the Church could re-discover the role of prophets in our time.

Heaven knows we have an abundance of critics.

Occupy Fort Worth (Dish Out)

2011-10-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

You may already be registered for the upcoming Fort Worth Dish Out, and if so great! And if not, then what is the hold up!

In case you are not aware of what Fort Worth Dish Out is a meal based micro-granting event for local non-profits.

Everyone in attendance buys a ticket ($20 each) and shares in meal, shares in fellowship with the Fort Worth community, hears 3 non-profits in the area, and votes on the non-profit they would like to support. The winner of the vote gets 60% of the funds collected that night while the other two non-profits each get 20% of the funds.

Based upon the number of people who attend, these non-profits get more funds and exposure!

So this means that if you are looking for a great night of fun as well as making a social impact on Sunday October 23, @ 5:30pm - you ought to be at Fort Worth Dish Out.

You can register here.

Confusing Rushing and Urgency

2011-10-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

With the world changing so quickly there is a pressure in the Church to try to keep up with the times. Local churches are expected to have the same personal services and amenities of any other place which has 'membership dues'.

Child care at all times
Personalization of services
Different "take aways" or SWAG
Free perks for members
Premium content for those who pay more
Access to communal resources

When viewed in this light, the church becomes a place where we are primarily "fed" and "where everybody knows your name". And when the church does not accomplish these things, then one takes "membership dues" and goes elsewhere. This creates a unhealthy co-dependency which I have recently addressed here and here.

The point of this post however, is that when the local church is asked and expected to keep up with the Joneses of the for-profit world then we are always running behind. This pressure to keep up married with the fact that churches are usually lagging behind, creates a sense of urgency in the church for some people.

What I have noticed is that in the church urgency is often confused with rushing.

In our efforts to keep up with the Joneses and keep pace with the expectations of being a "membership based" culture, we are often reacting to things and rushing to create something that it ends up not being our best.

There is a difference in a sense of urgency and being rushed.

There is a difference in responding to issues and reacting to a concern.

Our churches are notorious for rushing to get something out by Sunday and in doing so we fall even more behind and look even worse.

Not the 50's nor the 90's but the Emergents!

2011-10-16T06:00:00.000-05:00

There are a couple of ways of thinking about "church" that seem to be in tension with each other.

There is the 1950's idea that believes if you build it, people will come. Put a cross on the building and people will come to the church. Another way of this model is expressed this way, "yes people leave the church in their 20's but they always come back when they have kids." There are several books on the shelves that argue that this way of thinking is all sorts of wrong. I differ to these books.

There is the more popular and more recent 1990's idea that believes that if you get a band that play contemporary music while having a dynamic speaker then people will come. This more difficult to argue as no longer valid as we sit in the shadow of mega churches/teachers such as this guy or this guy or this woman. However, you may recall that back in 2007 Willow Creek (a church that pioneered the 1990's model of church) reported that that model was a mistake and does not lead to discipleship.

It is not that these above models are totally wrong 100% of the time. Rather it is that we have put all our eggs in a particular basket as a way to "save the church" from extinction.

We are in the middle of the Emergent Church/Incarnational Christian gaining traction as the new model that will "save the church". And while I am an advocate of this way of being the Church, I have to admit that this model too will suffer the same fate as other models if it is unwilling or unable to adapt.

The 1950's model, the 1990's model the Emergent model are all wonderful models - they are not, regardless of the rhetoric, silver bullets.

Are we Christians really monotheistic? Part 3

2011-10-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

If we live our lives thinking there are multiple gods (such as the "god of anger") yet we worship only one God (such as Jesus) then we are not really monotheistic oriented. Rather we are henotheistic or monolatristic.

If we Christians are moving in our lives believing there are somethings (or some gods) which are good (say love) and some things(gods) that are bad (say hate) then we are forgetting that God declared all things good.

If we declare somethings good and somethings bad then we will live out our lives attempting to remove the bad while seek after the good. So we begin to worship the "good" gods and demonize the "bad" gods.

Again, not a posture of monotheism.

While practical and popular, the question, "Is this good or bad?" is not a question for Christian monotheism. We already know the answer. All things are good as declared by God.

If we are asking if something is good or bad then we are really, at our core, practicing something other than monotheism of Christianity.

Christian monotheism rather accepts that all things are created by one God and that one God called all things good. As such we do not waste time considering if something is bad and therefore should be avoided or good and therefore should be attained. The question Christian monotheism asks is, "Is this redeemed or does it need to be redeemed?"

This question changes our posture in the world.

If we think that hate is bad and should be avoided then we are forgetting that Christian monotheism calls us to hate things like slavery and injustice. If we think that drug use is bad then we will avoid it as well as those who are victims of drugs. Rather if we see drug use as something that needs to be redeemed then we will sit with and seek out help for those who are addicts.

If we live in a world of good and bad then we will not engage the bad parts of the world and therefore the world does not change. Additionally, when we think something is bad we deny the power that is inherent in that thing (such as the power of hating injustice).

Rather, if we live in a world that is redeemed or in need of redemption then we will enter into the dark places of the world and work for change. Additionally, when we see something as in need of redemption then we are able to utilize the inherent power in that thing in order to help redeem it. Can you imagine a world that is so full of hate of slavery that no one would allow anyone to become enslaved in human trafficking?

So, I join all my Christian brothers and sisters who claim monotheism to change from asking, "Is this good or bad?" to "Is this redeemed or in need or redemption?".

Somethings are difficult to redeem. :)

Are we Christians really monotheistic? Part 2

2011-10-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

The previous post just briefly pointed out that when one thinks there are other gods in the world then monotheism is called into question. Additionally, it was pointed out, that many of us live as though we do think there are other gods in the world (such as the god of pride or the god the money), and as such perhaps many of us Christians operate not out of montheism but out of henotheism or monolatry.

When we orient our lives around the idea that there are other gods in the world, then we can quickly judge these different gods as either good or bad.

The god of love - good.
The god of hate - bad.
The god of pride - bad.
The god of peace - good.

Once we have judged for ourselves that which is good and that which is bad, we then desire to live our lives out of desiring the good while avoiding the bad.

The little hiccup in our plan however is that as a Christian we understand that God made all things and called them good. So how then can we go though life calling bad what God called good?

Even Jesus did not like being called good when he was identified as a "good teacher".

When we go through life judging for ourselves what is good and what is bad we can find ourselves building a bubble around our lives, insulating us from reality.

We begin to see some people as good and others as bad. We begin to see some ideas as good and some as bad.

When we create a good/bad world (dualism) then we can find ourselves no longer able or willing to help transform the world.

Why would I want to hang out with the "bad" people or read about the "bad" ideas or practice "bad" habits?

When we live in a world which we proclaim good and bad on things which God has called Good, then we live in a world which is not oriented toward monotheism.

The next post if the final of this installment and will (hopefully) be the answer to the question, "so what?"

Are we Christians really monotheistic? Part 1

2011-10-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

There are a number of debates to this question. Some say yes because of the "one God" thing while others point to the Trinity as less monotheistic and more polytheistic.

Frankly I do not really care about that too much. I will leave that debate to others who are more philosophical and smarter than me to hash out. (see the elaborate chart to the right for more confusion on the "is the trinity really monotheism" debate. It just blew your mind.)

Rather this is the first post in regards to the Exodus 32, in which Aaron makes for the people a golden calf which they go on to ascribe deity status to and worship it. This is the original "idol" in the Biblical narrative and the one that gets the most play when we talk about idolatry.

Most of the time, we Christians act like there is one God. Most Christians that I know, do not speak of multiple gods running around in the heavens above us as in Greek mythology. And yet, many nominally Christian people I encounter do not orient their lives around monotheism - the belief in one and only one God.

Many Christians orient their lives around the idea that there is one God (the God of/in Christ Jesus) but also do not deny there are other gods or other powers in the world that are god-like. To take a simple example, many Christians talk about dealing with the temptation of the 'god of wealth' or the 'god of pride'. On a lighter note, football fans speak of the 'football gods' when their team cannot catch a break.

Silly as it sounds, many Christians speak as though these 'gods' do exist on some level - even a metaphorical one. And when we do not personally deny the existence of a god but choose to worship one God in particular then we are not really orientated to monotheism. Rather we are talking about either henotheism or monoaltry.

Henotheism is the idea that other gods exist, and they in fact may be worthy of praise, but one chooses to worship a particular God.

Monoaltry is the idea that other gods exist, and they are not worthy of praise, and so one chooses to worship a God that is worthy of praise.

Hold those thoughts, the next post will explore how henotheism and monoaltry directly affect how we move and interact with the world.

How Many Slaves Work for You?

2011-10-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

This is another little survey to discover a bit more about the human slavery issue around the world. We might think that since slavery is illegal in the US then Americans must be "slavery free."

Take this little survey (it is easy to do but you can take a long time on this if you want to get more specific/accurate).

My first run at this test shared that I had 25 slaves working for me. :(

As soon as I saw that I instantly thought, "Now wait just a minute. I should go back and modify some of my responses and try to rationalize away some things. For instance this does not take into account that I am actually answering for a family of three people. So I should/could split this number into three and that is much more accurate..."

This sort of rationalizing when on and on in my mind for a while until I realized just how crazy it is to think that I would feel better to have 8 slaves than 25 slaves.

One slave is one slave too many.

How Millennial Are You - Survey

2011-10-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

In case you have not seen this over your coming and goings but Pew Research Center has this little survey you can take to "determine" how millennial you are.

Like all surveys this can be taken with a grain of salt as well as speak to some generalities about current culture.

If you find yourself at odds with these 'young whipper snappers' or do not understand those who were born after 1981, then this might be something to consider looking at.

Additionally, this might be great to take (there are only 14 questions) and see just how much you align with millennial thought/culture.

I was born in 1982 and thus find myself a little bit in both the Gen X and Millennial groups. My score of an 88 however reflects a much stronger leaning toward Millennial culture. Below is a screen shot of my answers and results so that I can reference them in the future. (Note this screenshot is modified so to fit better.)

How running is related to study and weight lifting is related to fasting

2011-10-04T06:00:00.000-05:00

Over the years my mentor/friend/colleague in ministry, Rev. Nancy Allen, has really modeled for me how important Spiritual Formation is in the life of the Christian. At the same time there are a number of Christians whom I heard who do not know or participate in intentional Spiritual Formation.

In a recent conversation there was a question that was asked: "What is Spiritual Formation?"

I am not an expert on this stuff by any means but I will share this as something that has been helpful for me.

When we talk about physical fitness, generally, (I am told) there are two types of fitness to consider: cardiovascular training and strength training. Both cardio and strength fall under the larger umbrella of "fitness" .

Personally I am the type of person who is drawn to cardio rather than strength training. I feel like I am becoming "fitter" when I run on the treadmill or elliptical than bench pressing or even doing "preacher curls".

I am naturally drawn to cardio but, I do strength training. I naturally feel better with cardio than strength training. However, I have incorporated strength training into the times I go to the gym (the 3 times a year I go). I have discovered, over time, that strength training has helped me become "fitter" and it helps my cardio.

In the same way, there are things under the umbrella of Spiritual Formation which I have artificially divided into two categories: Practices and Disciplines.

Just like I am naturally drawn to cardio when I work out my body, there are some things I am naturally drawn to when it comes to Spiritual Formation. I am naturally drawn to study, and when I do these things I feel closer to God. I call these things spiritual practices. However, there are things that I am not naturally drawn to such as fasting. I call these things spiritual disciplines.

Both are critical in my holistic Spiritual Formation.

It is easy for me to walk into the gym and run on the treadmill for 40 minutes and feel like I am getting physically "fit". And I am.... but not completely. So I do strength training.

It is easy for me to study the Bible and feel like I am being spiritually formed. And I am.... but not completely. So I do disciplines.

Disciplines are easy for me to discount and not do because I do not see the value in them right away. However, just as exclusively running on a treadmill is not really becoming physically fit, exclusively reading the Bible is not really being spiritually formed.

"You can sit and watch it"

2011-10-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

"You can sit and watch it."

This is what my 3 year old son said in response to the question we asked him about what I am to do when he plays "church".

"You can sit and watch it."

My son attends worship regularly, and while only being 3 years old, I think that he has and understanding of worship that is similar to what many people might consider worship to be. If is something that one can sit and watch.

Currently, I am reading "Preaching in the Inventive Age" in which Pagitt addresses that the sermon is, which is dominated by monologue delivery, is something that contributes to the understanding that church is that place where you can "sit and watch".

Pagitt argues for a "progressional dialogue" with clergy and laity in the preaching moment. I cannot tell you how great this book is. If you preach, you ought to consider Pagitt's book.

Here is a link to all my highlights so far. And for those of you who are like me and would just like a sampling, here you go!

"This dependence on preaching as speech making has become a form of communication I call "speaching""
"Speaching is not defined by the style of the presentation but by the relationship of the presenter to both the listeners and the content: the pastor uses a lecture-like format, often standing while the listeners are sitting. The speacher decides the content ahead of time, usually in a removed setting, and then offers it in such a way that the speacher is in control of the content, speed, and conclusion of the presentation"
"Preaching has so uniformly been equated with speech making that any other means of sermonizing is thought to be trivial and less authoritative."
"There are those who assume that if more people are allowed to share their understanding of teaching, theology, and faith, then there's a greater risk of the church losing truth. But the history of heresy shows that it's most often the abuse of power-not an openness of power-that creates environments ripe with heresy. The church is at a greater risk of losing its message when we limit those who can tell the story rather than invite the community to know and refine it"
"I have come to believe that there's a kind of dehumanizing effect when, week after week, competent people aren't allowed to share their ideas and understanding; when, week after week, one person is set apart from the rest as the only one who is allowed to speak about God; when, week after week, people willingly, or by some sort of social or spiritual pressure, just sit and take it; when, week after week, they're taught that the only way to be good learners is to be better listeners."
"It's simply untrue that people need their information in small, bite-sized or even "pre-chewed" pieces. The issue may not be that we have too much information or that we aren't presenting it in compelling ways but, perhaps, the information we've chosen is not all that interesting. New methods and exciting delivery will do little to solve that problem. A better or more tech-savvy speach is still a speach."
"What I know to be true is not negated by others knowing more or other things. Truth is progressive, not regressive or zero sum. When someone knows something to be true, it doesn't remove the legitimacy of other truths but adds to it. We may not agree with the conclusions people draw, but we're better when we're moved to additional ways of seeing the world."

Reading a book like I follow a recipe

2011-09-30T13:48:00.000-05:00

I am not a very good chief. I tend to rely heavily on recipes. You may be the same.

The thing about the way I cook is that I read the recipe and then do what it tells me to do. Usually it turns out well, but there is a problem with that process. When I do this, I do not pay attention to what I am reading. I am reading "one cup of oil" and then I measure one cup of oil. I do not, however, consider how much one cup of oil looks like in the pan. I do not assess if I ought to add more/less oil because of my diet. I just measure and pour.

So the next time I cook, either that recipe or another, I still have to measure out one cup of oil each time. This slows my cooking process down, uses more dishes to measure and ensures that I will spend more time and resources cleaning up the mess that I have made. Rather, if I could integrate the one cup of oil into my mind, then I would not need to measure each time and I could focus on experimenting with other ingredients in the future.

But since I don't integrate that into my mind, I am limited to sticking to the recipe.

When all the cooking is over I then evaluate if I like the results. I decide if I "like" or "dislike" the meal. The focus is on the end results. If I like it, then I will cook it again. If not then that recipe is out the window.

I find that many times I read a book in the same way I read a recipe.

I read the information, I do not integrate it into my mind (so I constantly have to keep referring back to the recipe/book each time I want to recall it) and I am limited on what I can do with that information. I cannot experiment with the content of the book because I am too busy evaluating if I like what the author said or disliked it.

I read a recipe and then I evaluate it.
I read a book and then I evaluate it.

I miss the critical step of integration! I am quick to judge the content (or the end result) that I forget to integrate what I read into my mind for future experimentation.

If we read the Bible in such a way that we read for information then we evaluate it right away, we do not even give another voice the chance to influence our thoughts/actions. We judge it as good/bad without considering if it actually has something to add to our lives.

Might we learn as a Church to move beyond reading just for information and evaluation and learn to read also for integration.

That is when we are really cooking.

"Soylent Green is people!" not "Soylent Green is corporations!"

2011-09-28T06:00:00.000-05:00

Jubilee Bank

2011-09-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

KIVA is a micro-lending organization which allows individuals to operate like a bank. Someone in a developing country would like to, say, expand their business selling widgets. This entrepreneur does not have the initial capital to front to cost of expansion and thus they contact KIVA. KIVA then sets up a loan and then asks people like you and me to donate our money in order to "fund" the loan. Your donation can be as small as a few dollars, this is in part why it is called "micro-lending". In time, the entrepreneur pays back the loan which you and several others gave.

It makes a lot of sense to make a number of loans in developing nations, in part because $500 in Kenya goes much farther than in developed nations.

KIVA has helped transform lives and I hope you might consider becoming a micro-lender.

A real problem in the United States is that 15% of the population lives at or below the poverty line (which defined as $22,000 for a family of four), which is a record for since the data has been captured in censuses. In addition, it is estimated that 58% of Americans will at some point live at that poverty level for at least one year.

Statistics can be cited all day long, but that is not the point of this post.

The point is to share with you a new project I am beginning to work on with a few other people (there are four of us) - currently called "Jubilee Bank".

The dream is a micro-lending organization in which the working poor of Fort Worth might be able to acquire loans to cover costs of unforeseen accidents - flat tires, sick child, window unit goes out, etc.

The dream is still just a dream, but there are a few things which are currently in action that take the dream toward a step into reality.

If you have any thoughts on how to set up Jubilee Bank that might be fruitful for those in Fort Worth Texas, post a comment. I meet with a few people in the coming days to see if this idea can become a reality.

Peace.

Preaching may not be proclaiming and proclaiming may not be preaching

2011-09-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

There is that oft cited line in the Church, "Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words." This little line gets at the heart of the matter that the act of speaking to a congregation is not the only way to "preach the Gospel." This is a bit of a no brainer for those who have been taught that actions speak louder than words. Just because you you are not preaching does not mean you are not proclaiming the Gospel.

This quote, however, sometimes is not considered in the inverse - just because you are preaching does not mean you are proclaiming. Regardless of the quality of the sermon or the celebrity of the preacher, not all sermons preached are proclaiming the Gospel.

America seems to have a lot of preachers (Osteen, Oprah, Jakes, Bell, Moore, Piper, Copeland, Hinn, Meyer, Hagee, Crouch, Dollar, Bynum, White, Warren, Willimon, etc.). Some preachers are just crazy, and some are just funny.

I wonder how many "proclaimers" of the Gospel are there?

Called out of ministry

2011-09-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

Much of the ordination process of the UMC is built on an idea that we feel called into ministry. It took me ten years, from start to finish, to become ordained in the UMC. There is a long and comprehensive process for identifying a call into ordained ministry.

A mentor and friend whom I deeply respect and admire mentioned recently that we ought to consider the a process for those people who feel God calling them out of ordained ministry.

As our lives change and we gain wisdom over and our sense of self change over time, so to would one's sense of call. Are you the same person you were 10 years ago? Will you be the same person 10 years from now?

Of course not.

What happens when a life of an ordained person in the UMC changes, and they no longer sensing a call in ordained ministry? Do we allow them to continue to do ordained ministry and limp along? Do we instead build into the system a process for transition out of ministry?

What would a process of being called out of ministry look like? Would that be something that would be an appreciated process for those ministers who can move out of ministry with dignity? It has to be better than surrendering credentials with a sense of shame and/or disgrace. It has to be better than "plugging along" until retirement.

Don't congregations deserve ministers we are called into ministry and not called out ministry?

Romanticism of the past reveals shared values

2011-09-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

Church leaders generally speak of the 1950's as the "golden age" of church in America. Loads of churches were built, loads of people attended these houses of worship, and the church was at the center of the cultural square. Church leaders have a tendency to romanticize the 1950's.

Many people I know romanticize their time in college.

Many others still romanticize the time they "were single".

There seems to be a large number of people in my tribe who romanticize a version of pre-industrial, agrarian America.

I wonder if the age in which we romanticize is an expression of our personal values?

Those of us who have fond thoughts of pre-industrial America seem to uphold a set of values which seem to be embodied in that age:

Shared economy
Emphasis on that which is 'local'
Tools that are not dirty to the environment
Smaller numbers of everything and simpler

Of course, we also forget that that time also:

Highly segregated
Malnutrition
Limited access to resources
Hard manual labor

Perhaps one of the ways we can build bridges between one another is to discover what age they romanticize and uncover the values that person is cherishing.

If I know you are a minister who loves the1950's church, then I am willing to bet that you and I have different values. This gives us a chance to build a relationship knowing right off the bat that we have different views of what Church is, but also we have a chance to build a relationship on shared values.

This is also true for hot button issues. Say a pro-lifer and a pro-choice person are meeting. It is easy to quickly point to the difference in their views, but I am willing to be that they have a shared value - quality of life. Build the relationship and conversation on the shared value and not the divergent views and see what happens.

Jesus and the religious order had different views (how to live out Sabbath), but they had similar values (Sabbath is important).

Republicans and Democrats have different views (the role of government) but shared values (safe and prosperous society).

You and I have different views (theology), but I am willing to be we have shared values (Peace).

I may not care for the 1950's but I can appreciate that you too romanticize the past, because I do that as well.

Examples or Metaphors - not both

2011-09-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

At most conferences people who are giving speeches take the approach of sharing metaphors or specific examples of what they are talking about. I have found this to be radically annoying and not helpful.

Why?

When someone gives a few examples of how "this thing" works, they give a specific example. The problem is it is generally too specific and people are curious, but quickly discount the example as "able to work there but that would not work in my setting." So a couple of specific examples are generally flashes in the pan. Cool to see, but difficult to cook with.

Another 'write off' of a few specific examples is that people do not own that idea. There is some program that works in some area, people are generally not able to sustain that idea in their context because they really do not own the idea. This 'lack of ownership = unsustainable" idea is on display when someone tells you, "you know we should really be doing ______. You should make that happen."

If, however, you were to give more that a couple of examples for an idea then you are onto something. If you were able to give somewhere in the ballpark of 20 examples of where/how this "idea" is working, then you begin to shut down the thoughts of "that will not work in my context" because you give people the ability to see how their context can be navigated to implementation. If I hear of a prayer program in schools in one location, I will discount it. If I hear of 20 prayer programs in schools, I am more apt to get excited on how I can implement that in my context.

On the other end of the spectrum of giving a few examples, a speaker will often give one metaphor. However, these metaphors are often 'heady' and the fear is getting too heady without giving specific examples of how the idea looks on the ground. Which is why speakers do not spend much time developing the metaphors too much and jump right to sharing a few examples. Then we are right back into the problems of sharing just a few specific examples.

However, if a speaker develops a metaphor deeply and fully then it will capture the imagination of people to problem solve their own context. When we problem solve ourselves then we have ownership to the idea and thus up the chances of success and sustainability.

Let me violate my comments above and give just one example.

Recently I heard the metaphor of the church as an airport. The speaker went on to say that airports are never destinations in of themselves. No one takes a vacation at the airport for a week. The only time the airport as a destination was a good idea it was made into a fictional movie with two big movie stars in order to sell the movie.

That was all the development the presenter did on this metaphor and the metaphor was dead in the water. The metaphor was too heady and too abstract and people forgot the metaphor all together. If however, the presenter had developed the metaphor more it had the chance to capture the imaginations of people. Perhaps he could have asked:

Where do people check their baggage?
Who is responsible for flying the plane?
Who is designated to work in the lost and found area?
What does a passport look like in your church?
Do you have a security check point?
Are you profiling?

And on and on. This metaphor, when developed, leads to a number of ideas on how to do/be Church.

When the metaphor is not developed in favor of giving a few examples, then both the metaphor suffers and the people listening discount examples and do not build the metaphor.

So give me examples or a metaphor. Don't try to do both.

Learning that listening to a expert in a common place about how listening to an expert in a common place is not good

2011-09-16T06:00:00.000-05:00

It is a rather common and popular thing these days in the world of church leaders to critique the way we are doing church. I do it on this very blog with some predictable constancy.

A common point of critique of the Church is essentially summed up by a number of quips - "The way we are working is not working." "They like Jesus but not the Church." "We need to rethink Church and be a missional outpost" "We need to be less church focused and more Kingdom focused."

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

While on many levels I agree with these sound bytes, the way in which they are shared is often the greatest point of frustration.

All of the seminars I have been at which talk about "rethinking Church" there is a tendency to talk about how we can no longer expect people to come to church in the ways people came to church in the past. We cannot just build a building, slap a cross on it, call it a church and expect people will fill the pews each week. We have to think beyond the walls of the church and be "incarnational" and "missional". They tell us that we cannot keep doing what we are doing and expect different results.

The thing is, the way these seminars are set up they look a lot like the expression of church they are critiquing.

A group of like minded people gathering together to listen to a middle-aged person (generally male) standing on a stage talking about changing behavior in order to generate different results.

I find it annoying and unimaginative at best, and condescending at the worse.

If you want people to see Church expressed differently, then you have to show people. The medium really is the message on this matter.

What would it look like to have a church seminar that was open source/space?

Shameless plug and self promotion

2011-09-14T18:00:00.000-05:00

It is an honor to be asked to speak any where. Clergy are asked to speak at sacred moments in peoples' lives and for that it is rather humbling.

Clergy are supposed to be communicators at heart and so to be asked to speak is not uncommon in the life of a clergy person.

It is something else to be asked to come and speak to other clergy (or your peers of any profession I would imagine).

Still humbling, but a bit more scary. Why I am included in this line up I have no idea, but you can be sure I will be the most uncool person speaker. (Plus I might not be the most 'inked' person either,)

*UPDATE* It has been brought to my attention that I am not the only one who is responsible for this opportunity. There are a number of excellent, hard working, creative, and articulate people who worked hard on the Fort Worth Dish Out who could just as easily speak but are unable to take off from work to do so. While this update is a bit too late in the "blogosphere", it is never too late to remedy a situation.

Nadia Bolz-Weber. Way cooler than me

Did Gandhi say that?

2011-09-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

My friend Adam, passed along to me an article from the NY Times entitled "Falser Words Were Never Spoken." While I can be mistaken, this article comments on how some quotes of famous people are sometimes not historically stated by the people they are credited to.

Here is an excerpt towards the end of the article to give you a synopsis:

Thoreau, Gandhi, Mandela — it’s easy to see why their words and ideas have been massaged into gauzy slogans. They were inspirational figures, dreamers of beautiful dreams. But what goes missing in the slogans is that they were also sober, steely men. Each of them knew that thoroughgoing change, whether personal or social, involves humility and sacrifice, and that the effort to change oneself or the world always exacts a price.

Gandhi is credited with a variation of the quote "you must be the change you wish to see in the world." For those of you who do not know, there is no historical evidence that he stated this line.

Some might be jaded (perhaps like the author of the Times article sounds to be) that since the line was not actually of the source that it is credited to, it looses a great deal of credibility.

This is also what many have "against" the words of Jesus in the Bible. We do not know for certain if Jesus actually stated each and every word that is in red in the Bible.

Likewise with the apostle Paul who is credited for writing letters he did not pen.

This line is a wonderful example of the difference in reading for truth (historicity) and reading for Truth (Myth).

If we were reading for truth, then yes, the quote is not true. It is not from Gandhi. It is not true.

If we are reading for Truth, then yes, the quote if True. It does not matter if Gandhi stated it or not. We really much be the change if we want the world to change.

Gandhi might not have said it. There might not have been an arc built by Noah. There might not have been an Odysseus tied to mast of a ship. There might not have been a virgin birth of Jesus. There might not even be a bodily resurrection of Christ. That does not make the stories/Myths any less True.

Truth is more than facts.

Facts do not move people to action (no one supports a child in Africa after hearing the life expectancy of children, which is why they do not use them on the commercials late at night).

Facts do not transform people (if so then global warming would be a non-issue now).

Facts only support our position and the other person's facts are wrong (which is why MSNBC and FOX each have access to their own set of 'facts' on the government).

Facts do not change the world.

You do.

Just like Gandhi said.

Self-defense = self love?

2011-09-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

Currently I am reading After the Smoke Clears: The Just War Tradition and Post War Justice. The authors cite another book, Faith and Force" A Christian Debate about War, in which four historical stages in the development of just war thinking are laid out.

The first stage that is given is the Christian thinkers Ambrose and Augustine.

Augustine was a converted to Christianity after encountering Ambrose's preaching, so they are intertwined in their thought. According to the research in these two books, both of these men "instructed Christians to forego self-defense if attacked as a private citizen, for this would be an example of excessive self-love." (emphasis added)

It was Thomas Aquinas who argued that "self preservation is natural, and a private individual may not intend to kill an attacker even though the death of the assailant may result."

For about 800 years of Christian tradition, killing someone in self defense was considered excessive self love.

If this was the case, why then do we see non-violence (and to a greater extent pacifism) as not real answers to the complex situations we are in?

Have we fallen into excessive self love?

Wilco - War on War

2011-09-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

While I am not the first to point this out I am sure, the band Wilco has this song called "War on War". I am not a music buff. In fact I was recently told that I like music which can easily be substituted for background music for any products that target the 40-60 year old mothers of this country.

Needless to say I am not hip with the music of today. When I ran across this song and heard it again for the first time in a long time I could not but hear very strong Christian undertones. Is Wilco a "Christian" band? If not, then why cannot more "Christian bands" sound better than the junk I hear on the Christian radio? (They all sound to me like they are reading a Hallmark card to a 3 year old child who just found out that his puppy died due to heartworms. Can we drop the airy-ness of Christian vocalists?)

For those of you who work in a controlled environment (Lockheed) or those who work for a lame boss who will not allow you to play Youtube videos, below this embedded frame you can find the lyrics to Wilco's song.

Peace.

It's a war on war
It's a war on war
It's a war on war
It's a war on war
It's a war on war
It's a war on warIt's a war on war
There's a war on
You're gonna lose
You have to lose
You have to learn how to die

Let's watch the miles flying by
Let's watch the miles flying by
You are not my typewriter
But you could be my demon
Moving forward through flaming doors
You have to lose
You have to learn how to die
If you wanna be alive

O.k.

You have to lose
You have to lose
You have to learn how to die
If you wanna be alive

You have to die
You have to die
You have to learn how to die
If you wanna be alive

Avoiding conflict

2011-09-06T18:00:00.000-05:00

If we avoid conflict with our neighbor because we do notthink they can handle it, then we are victims of arrogance.

If we avoid conflict with our neighbor because we do notlike conflict, then we are victims of immaturity.

If we avoid conflict with our neighbors because we areunsure of what the conflict might bring, then we are victims of fear.

If we avoid conflict with our neighbors because we do notthink it is worth it, then we are delaying a future conflict.

What theologian influenced you?

2011-09-04T06:00:00.000-05:00

"If we return evil with evil then all we will ever have is evil."

While not original, this little line came via a Lutheran sermon I listened to on Sunday in Colorado. It is good to hear the non-violent Jesus being preached in all areas of the Church.

I asked the minister after worship if he was aware of Rene Girard because the sermon was very much in line with Girardian thought.

The minister said no.

I asked him what theologian influenced his sermon this morning. To which the minister looked blankly at me and stated with the a bit of surprised tone in his voice, "Jesus."

I felt kind of stupid.

All of this to say that I continue to hope and pray that the Church can join this Lutheran minister and rediscover the message of Jesus in order to help save Christianity from being a naive hallmark card that is mostly concerned about the afterlife.

Worshiping worship - Part 3

2011-09-02T06:00:00.027-05:00

If we consider that institutions are organizations that protects the gains of previous movements, then we can argue that institutions are rooted in the past. This is not a bad thing at all, it is vital to us that institution protect the past so that we are not apt to repeat the same mistakes. We have laws against slavery as a result of a past movement, and those laws protect the gains of those movements.

If we consider that movements are organizations that call institutions into new social gains, then we can argue that movements are rooted in the present. This is not a bad thing, it is vital to us that movements live in the present so to not become stale but remain nimble and can adapt to the current situation. The "Tea Party movement" is rooted in the present. While not this simple, it might be argued that if there was no debt then there would not have been a Tea Party movement. Movements are rooted in the present which also makes them look odd when we look at movements out of the context they were originally located in. Take the following video:

Weird huh. But this was a huge dance "movement" and in the moment it made so much sense.

All of this to say that the UMC spends a lot of time discussing the value of the institution and the need to become a movement again. However, this creates a dualism in which we pit institutions and movements against each other only to see which one will come out the victor in the end.

Christians are called to be Trinitarian in our thinking and in our lives. Which means that these two aspects of Church are not enough.. If institutions are rooted in the past and movements are rooted in the present, then we ought to consider what is rooted in the future to help us avoid dualism and idolatry.

I do not have the answer, but I would submit that perhaps the thing that is rooted in the future is imagination.

When we are rooted in the future we have to use our imagination because that future is not completely known.

All of these past three posts are all an attempt to encourage us in the Church to not only value the institution (past) and praise the movements (present) but also to have courage with our imagination (future).

If we are are busy working on preserving the institution or finding the popular trend in culture, then we have limited resources to dream and vision a future that is not yet here. As we read the story of Jesus it is clear that Jesus was very much a leading from the future sort of guy.

He had harsh words for those who preserved the institution. He was not against the institution, but when the institution becomes an idol then that is idolatry and this is in part why Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 a couple of times in the gospel of Matthew. Many people worshiped act of the sacrifices to the neglect of mercy.

Additionally, Jesus did not spend much time crafting the movement around him, he trusted his disciples to tend to that. For instance when he was faced with feeding 5000 people, Jesus told the disciples to do that! Jesus knew that when we get wrapped up on the movement that it can quickly devour us and we do not have resources or the ability or time to do the vision and imagining that is required for the Kingdom of God.

Jesus spoke in parables, he spent a lot of time in prayer, he fasted, he isolated himself from the group regularly, he was constantly on the move - all of these are evidence that Jesus was doing the imagining work that was required for the revival of the Jewish institution and the progress of the movement that was forming around him.

The work of imagination is hard, labor intensive, valuable, necessary and vital to the life of the Church but we seem to not be very good at it. If we want to reclaim the way of Jesus and imagine like he did, then I think it would not be a bad start to practice the things he did:

Pray.
Fast.
Isolation and meditation.
Move with purpose.
Contemplate and reflect.

We might call these tools of imagination.

We also might call these spiritual disciplines.

Worshiping worship - Part 2

2011-08-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

Previously I mentioned a bit about the need for movements and institutions.

Last post touched on using the idea of the Trinity to help mitigate idolatry in the way we "do" Church.

Today will be an attempt o connect these two thoughts.

First - Movements and Institutions in tension
If movements are needed in order to push us beyond the status-quo and institutions preserve the advances of the movements then could we put these two on a continuum? So it might look like this:

(It should be noted that while it is often the norm to see things on a continuum like this that there is a "left" and "right" correlation, it is not the case with this. You can imagine there are liberals who care about institutions and movements just as there are conservatives.)

Second - M/I tension results in dualism
The movement and institution live in a healthy tension with each other, but often are pitted against each other in popular church speak. One is described as free and another as cumbersome, however, this is rather simplistic and not healthy. Both are vital to the success of the Church and to think in terms of one 'against' the other is not helpful and leads us to dualism.

Dualism is that way of thinking that sees the world in black and white or sometimes thought of as either/or thinking. It is this thinking that Christianity seeks to break down (Richard Rohr writes about 'non-dualistic thinking' in Christianity).

When we raise one aspect of Church (worship) over the other aspects of Church we can fall into idolatry. When we live with understanding of Church that it should be a movement OR an institution we can fall into dualism.

Third - Trinitarian thinking overcomes idolatry and dualism
When we are thinking in trinitarian terms we diminish the influence of both idolatry and dualism in our lives and Churches. If we want to build a Church that avoids the lure of idolatry and dualism then we need to consider another focus, or another point or another leg, to our above continuum of building a Church as a Movement and Institution.

The next post will attempt to offer a third aspect of Church which might be critical to help ward off idolatry and dualism.

Worshiping worship - Part 1

2011-08-28T06:00:00.000-05:00

Among many of the leaders of the area of the UMC which I am located in, there is a premium placed upon worship. Worship is often described as the most important thing that we do as a Church.

A previous post touched on this idea which you can read if you would like.

It is not clear to me that there is one thing in the Church that ought to be the most important thing. To say such a thing seems more of a reflection of the priorities of the person saying it than of the reflection of God's priorities for the Church.

Can we really think that corporate worship is more important than working to eradicate slavery in our back yard? Or that teaching about the message of Jesus is more important than prayer and meditation?

How can one hold one aspect of the Church above another? Did not Paul speak of the Church being a body that is made of different parts and no one part is greater than the whole? Can the hands of service tell the heart of worship that they do not need it? Of course not.

When we elevate worship above the other aspects of Church I would submit that we are in danger of moving toward an idolatry of worship. We worship worship.

From the infamous golden calf to elevating sacrifice above mercy to worshiping Cesar, the Bible shares of of many stories of humanity struggling with idolatry.

The Church also seems to struggle with idolatry in that different parts of the Church elevate one expression of God over the others. Mainline Church elevates God, Evangelicals elevate Jesus, and Pentecostals elevate the Holy Spirit. Try talking about the 'Holy Spirit' in the mainline and you will find it to be more uncomfortable than talking about 'God'.

The Trinity is a teaching about the nature of God which says, of many other things, that no one aspect of God is greater than another. Yet, our Churches fall into the idea that there are aspects of being Church that is greater than others - namely worship is the "most important" thing we do.

What if we were to take the idea of the Trinity and apply it to the Church?

The next post will explore this a bit more...

Adventures with a name tag

2011-08-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

I have a name tag at Church which I usually do not like. The lettering is too small and it has too many words on it to be in any way helpful to people who have not been bitten by a radioactive hawk and possess a super-human ability to see very clearly.

With all that lettering and the number of words on my name tag, it has become clear the only thing people see on my name tag is the word "Church".

As one who is curious to know about people and learn from them, it is usually counter-productive to meet an atheist or an agnostic wearing a name tag that says "Church" on it. It smacks of establishment and no one likes "the man".

I sought out to make a new name tag for myself.

I am not creative enough to come up with this name tag on my own but I discovered this style after viewing a number of Meetup groups who were discussing creativity. While their name tags were temporary stickers, I thought it would be great to go with a bit more of a permanent/official/reusable look.

So here is what I got:

While some might consider this too weird or "hey look at me!", I have discovered the flexibility and uniqueness of this name tag has opened the door to a number of wonderful conversations with people. And the thing is, it is the other people who choose to engage in the conversation first!

One day I wore that I love "Girard". To my amazement, I met a guy who knew who Girard was and was well versed in his writings. He and his wife were in from out of state for medical treatment for their son. After thirty minutes, he and I traded names and contact information so that we might reconnect on the internet as we find things related to our conversation.

Earlier this week I visited a coffee shop and the brewista stated, "oh, you are the guy with the name tag. What do you love today?"

Not a big deal by any stretch of the imagination, but it has been a wonderful experiment thus far in engaging with people to talk of life, philosophy, religion, God and even Anchorman:

Gaining and loosing the gift of prophecy

2011-08-24T06:00:00.002-05:00

In Romans 12, Paul writes these words:

"For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching;the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness."

One of the striking phrases to me in this section is the idea of one receives "prophecy, in proportion to faith". It is striking to me because it is often understood that prophecy is either something you have or you do not have. Much like brown eyes - you either have them or you do not.

However, if we are to consider that we are to grow in faith then does that mean that we too can proportionally grow in prophecy? And if we diminish in faith then do we proportionally diminish in prophecy?

Recently I completed reading "The Prophetic Imagination" by Walter Brueggemann (which you can find my Kindle notes here). And in my reading of this book, with the Scriptures as well as what I recall from Seminary, it has awoken an awareness in me that prophecy is something more of a skill that we cultivate than a trait that we possess (or do not possess).

First off let me use Brueggemann's words to clarify what a prophet is:

While the prophets are in a way future-tellers, they are concerned with the future as it impinges upon the present.

The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us

It is the task of the prophet to bring to expression the new realities against the more visible ones of the old order.

As we grow in the faith of Christ and live into the call of God in our lives...
As we understand the message of Jesus and how he rooted his message in a rich tradition of prophets...
As we undertake spiritual disciplines and grow in the fruits of the spirit...
As we mature into the beings God desires us to be...

We grow in the skill of prophecy.

MLK did not just wake up one day and "discover" he was a prophet. No. He cultivated a love of Christ for years before he stepped into that role of the prophet. Even Jesus was 30 years old before he stepped into public ministry! Becoming a prophet takes time. And it is clear in the Biblical witness, it is something that we can all grow into.

Why would you come to my family reunion?

2011-08-22T06:00:00.001-05:00

In November of 2010 I attended a conference in which Brian McLaren noted the differences in movements and institutions

Movements are organizations which call institutions to new social gains.
Institutions are organizations which conserve the gains made by past movements.

Both are important and both are needed.

Lately there seems to be a trend in the UMC circles I move that the UMC needs to reclaim being a movement and move away from being an institution. And that language is very populist and raises a lot of "amens" from a usually silent UMC congregation.

With all the rhetoric of getting back to a movement as a denomination, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect going on with the implementation of that "movement talk."

What I mean is that is all the talk of reclaiming "movement status" we still put a lot of emphasis on the importance of the institution. That is to say we still place a ton of emphasis on the importance of worship.

While I think worship is important I am not sure it is helpful that only one aspect of the church is elevated to most important. This elevation of worship sets up a potential to actually worship worship. So you end up getting things like the worship wars.

Let me share an example I have been pondering.

You do not want to come to my family reunion. It is nothing personal about you or me, it is just when you come to my family reunion you will be subject to hear from people you do not know, about things that happened in the past to people you never knew.

Family reunions are the institutional aspect of the family movement.

Family reunions capture the stories of the past. People break break together. People recall celebrations and advances the family made over the years. (Sounds a lot like worship...)

Why would you come to my family reunion? You were not a part of the movement of my family. You were not a part of the movement when my dad followed his dream and hit many obstacles. You were not there when my grandmother and grandfather moved in with us. You were not there at graduations or birthdays.

You are not interested in the institution of my family unless you have been a part of the movement of my family. Which is why my wife, who has been apart of our family for 10 years is more comfortable at our family gathering than you might be. She has been a part of the movement of our family. She appreciates the institution and works to keep it moving.

Because we have elevated worship as the "most important thing we do" as a church, we have made the most important thing an institutional aspect of our Church. And why would anyone who has not been apart of the movement sides of the Church want to be apart of the institutional sides of Church?

So my beloved Church, let us consider that while the institution is important, people will only be interested in preserving it if they were apart of the movements of the Church.

Sabbath and "the day off"

2011-08-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

There is a commandment in the Bible about taking a Sabbath day. It is one of the popularly named "big ten" commandments.

Sabbath is often understood/described as a day off for self care.

However, this really is not a great definition of Sabbath and leads to a twisted understanding of what Sabbath is all about.

When the focus on Sabbath is a day off for self care, then we quickly move into a egocentric religion. Sabbath becomes a time for us to renew ourselves so that we can continue to work the next day(s). Sabbath becomes something we get to do as a day of personal pampering or at the very least a day to do "whatever the heck I want to do to recharge my batteries."

As one who self admittedly is not that great at practicing Sabbath, I admit that I sometimes practice Sabbath as a day off in order to recharge my batteries. That is to say, sometimes I treat Sabbath as a "me day".

The times in which I have mistaken Sabbath as a "me day" have been the days which result in the next day being full of anxiety. When I come back from vacation (which I would contend is just a series of "me days") I come back to work with a high level of "oh man am I way behind" and take a couple of days to catch up.

Sabbath is something which does not result in the next day being full of anxiety. If we are taking day(s) off and calling it Sabbath, yet the next day is full of anxiety, then we have not taken Sabbath.

Sabbath is not that time in which we have emptied ourselves or disengaged with the world around us.

Sabbath is not the time in which we "unplug" from reality in order to escape from the woes at hand.

Sabbath is not "me time." Sabbath is "God time."

Sabbath is that time in which we dedicate an extended period of time to listening and reflecting and fully engaging the way in which God might be moving in your life. It is a time in which to reflect on what you feel God is calling you to do in this world. Sabbath is time that is centered on God and not on the me.

Interestingly enough I have found that when I take Sabbath, I am personally restored and refreshed.

When I make time to center myself upon the mysteries of the world and universe...

When I consider the struggles in my neighbors life...

When I reflect how the previous week reflected a sense of call in my life...

When I contemplate how I can use the coming week to live into a new reality...

When I take time to stop focusing on myself...

I encounter a God who provides and gives. I encounter a reality which pulls me into a tempo of life which is refreshing and restoring. When Sabbath is not about me but about God, I discover my next day is not anxiety filled.

It is in this way I encounter true Sabbath.

Sleeping continued...

2011-08-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

Recently I posted about surrendering to sleep and I just came across a series of pictures of sleepers from around the world. Below are a couple of my favorites to ponder.

Have you ever been this tired? Where can you or where do you find rest?

A young Chinese couple wait as their baby sleeps on a display bed as they shop at a department store in Beijing on August 15, 2011. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)

A baby sleeps while Palestinian women attempt to pass the checkpoint on their way to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque on the second Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on August 12, 2011. (Bernat Armangue/AP)

Tool for digging deeper into the Bible

2011-08-16T06:00:00.003-05:00

There are a number of tools to read the Bible deeper people learn in seminary of which sometimes clergy forget to share with congregation members. You may very well know this little "tip" in reading the Bible and if so, you are way ahead of the game. If you have not encountered this "tip", I hope this is helpful.

Take a section of the Bible, let us take the story in Matthew 15:21-28.

Step one - look to see if this story is somewhere else in the Bible (this story can be found in Mark 7:25-30)

Step two - look for differences, especially any differences that seems small. (In our case, one of the changes you may notice is the shift of the woman being a Greek-Syrophoenician-woman to a being Cannaite woman.)

Step three - discover where in the Bible we find references to the changes (Cannite's are referenced a number of times in the OT, for instance in Deuteronomy 7:1-6 in which the Cannaite's are one of seven tribes that Israel is "commanded" to conquer with the sword and spear.)

Step four - now you have a point in which to meditate, pray and read and discover a new meaning.

For instance, in this example above you will find that the first encounter the Jewish people had with the Cannaite's made them an enemy to be conquered. When Jesus comes he seeks to reconcile with these people whom have been deemed enemies for generations. Jesus's first encounter with these people, Jesus heals them, feeds them and serves them. Jesus is one who initiates a reconciliation with not only his own people, but also with the long standing enemies of Israel.

So take a look at the Bible and see if these steps are helpful to find new meanings and direction, and see where it takes you.

Another greatness to the Kindle

2011-08-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

If you are not rockin a Kindle yet, then I would invite you to consider this thought.

If you are the type of person who reads and highlights things or takes notes in the margins then you forget what was highlighted or where you wrote that margin note then the Kindle has a gift for you.

All your margin notes and highlights are recorded, organized, and saved in the cloud for later access and manipulation.

If you have an amazon account then go to https://kindle.amazon.com/your_highlights and log in. There you will see your notes/highlights and be overjoyed.

In addition, you will be able to see what looks to be highlights from others whom you have shared the book with right there in your notes. So you can see what your friends are thinking about when they read the book with you!

Oh, and if you want to share your notes with the public you can do that or make them private. Here are my notes and highlights for the book Almost Christian by Kenda Creasy Dean.

This just saved me ton of time typing in my notes and highlights or manually transferring my notes/highlights to documents saved on my computer (which I have saved over 30 books worth of notes and highlights on my computer which I can now delete!).

Kinda awesome.

Capturing stories

2011-08-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

It has been 3 years since I began to maintain this blog on a regular basis. Most of what is written here are my thoughts which I use to capture for future reference. Mostly, this blog functions as an online-journal.

I know, very egocentric.¹ But it is the truth. I am honored that people would read and even more when comments are made, however this site was set up for a personal tool to remind me to "be the change."

It is important to me that people get their wonderful thoughts and ideas down for future generations. What you have to say is valuable and contributes to the great Story of humanity. Which is why, although I am not much of a writer myself, I think everyone needs to write as a discipline.

We have all sorts of disciples in our lives which we find valuable to our development but for a number of reasons writing is not as wide spread as the discipline of, say, working out. However, writing is a disciple which is really like a "work out" for your brain. You are forced to put to words what you are thinking and that can be very difficult.

Perhaps there are some of you who really would like to begin to capture your life with a little more discipline? I find blogging really helpful for me, and you may want to try it.

Some of you may find that blogging is too difficult to do but you are still interested in capturing your (or a family member's/friend's) stories.

Below are a few tools to capture stories of yourself, family or friends which you may want to consider.

If you have read these posts before, then you will know about the "National Day of Listening". This is an annual event when you sit down and "interview" a loved one and record it. It is wonderful.

Perhaps you have heard of Proust.com. Here is their promo video which speaks for itself:

Introduction To Proust.com from Proust on Vimeo.

In the same vein, I would recommend also StoryTree.me which is more of a video+family album+online thing:

Storytree: Remember the Time from StoryTree on Vimeo.

So on this three year anniversary of working to capture my own story and faith journey and life struggles/experience, it is my hope and prayer that you too might find a way to capture your Story for the future.
_______________________________________________________________________
1I sometimes wonder if it really is egocentric to share your Story with others on a blog or is it just as egocentric to horde your Story so that no one can access/learn/hear your Story?

Posters churches ought to be making

2011-08-10T08:24:00.000-05:00

This was found by my Senior minister and forwarded to me. I cannot take credit for finding or making it.
Although I wish I were creative enough to do so.

Argument against growing

2011-08-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

I hear many people talk about Church and doing "spiritual things" in terms of what they get out of it.

"I go to worship to get fed."

"I meditate to become calm."

"I give my time to feel like I make a difference."

There is nothing wrong with these motivations, however they are rather superficial and very self-centered. We do things in order to "get something" out of them and when we no longer get something out of them (say worship) we stop and seek something else that we can get our "need" met.

It makes sense and is logical. We do spiritual practices in order to become better people.

That is fine, but I am not sure it is what Jesus taught.

Jesus did not teach the disciples to pray in order to become better people. Jesus did not attend worship to feel connected to God. Jesus did not fast in order to feel humbled and realize how frail we are when we are alone.

Perhaps contrary to popular understanding, Jesus did not do or teach the disciples to become better people. Jesus did not teach a moral code that would help people improve their lives, get to heaven or have better self-confidence.

The message of Jesus has little to do with becoming a better version of you.

Spiritual practices/Jesus/Christianity have everything to do with learning to die to yourself.

If we are seeking out prayer or worship or meditation or fasting in order to get something out of it, then we are really not learning what is intended. We are still seeking to become better versions of ourselves. We are seeking a version 2.0 of ourselves rather than a whole new operating system.

When we discover the "goal" of Christianity has more to do with something larger than ourselves then we are beginning to understand why spiritual practices matter.

If you are seeking to become a better person, I know that Christianity can help in some ways. However, if we are content at "arriving" at being better people then we will always miss the larger point of Christianity and we will always be on the look out for the next spiritual thing that will "fulfill" our need.

Do we all have a variation of Anton-Babinski syndrome

2011-08-06T06:00:00.001-05:00

One of the perceptions non-Christians have of Christians, according to the book unChristian is that Christians are judgmental. This judgmentalism is most often seen when we Christians go around the world proclaiming that we have a monopoly on Truth. We beat people over the head with our agenda and even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we stick to our guns. Take for instance the oft-sited debate of creationism and evolution. Some of us Christians stick to some variation/combination of the two creation stories in Genesis and at the same time some of us evolutionists are just as convinced to the contrary.

We Christians ought to be able to see something here. Both the religious and the non-religious are being equally stubborn in their views and neither side embodies humility. Each side is busy trying to outshout the other side with their "proof" all the while unwilling (or unable) to concede anything.

It is difficult to admit a concession to an argument if we are "convinced" that we are "right". Just like it is difficult to accept that you are actually blind when in fact you think you can see.

This is an actual medical condition called Anton-Babinski syndrome.

In case you did not follow the link, Anton-Babinski syndrome is a condition in which "People who suffer from it are "cortically blind", but affirm, often quite adamantly and in the face of clear evidence of their blindness, that they are capable of seeing."

While that condition is difficult for me to even consider, I would submit that perhaps all of us have some sort of version of Anton-Babinski syndrome of our thoughts.

We think we are correct in our views and affirm, "often quite adamantly and in the face of clear evidence" to the contrary, that we are correct and others are wrong.

There is a reason Christianity begins with repentance (see Matthew 3 for more information on this). When we repent we confess that we may not have been walking in the correct ways. We embody humility and concede we are wrong.

Even Jesus admitted he was wrong. Even Jesus had a little bit of Anton-Babinski syndrome when he initially refused to see his purpose to the non-Jew.

Good weed

2011-08-04T06:00:00.000-05:00

I always thought of a weed as I think of termites or roaches. They are pests.

Not so.

It was shared with me not too long ago that a weed is really just a plant that is out of place.

This made me reconsider for a moment the inherent goodness in a weed (or a roach for that matter).

God creates all things and in all things God calls them good. In fact God calls all of creation Very Good in the early chapter of the book of Genesis.

Even roaches are good. Even weeds.

In the Church we have a tendency to want to ascribe the labels of “good” and “bad” on things in order to help segment out our lives and actions. We do this in an attempt to help identify who is one of the chosen ones or who is a true disciple and who is not.

Just like what I have done with plants. There are some that are good (flowers and grass) and there are some that are bad, and weeds are the king of bad plants.

However, it is clear that God does not operate in this way. All things are very good, and when things look like they have gone “bad” perhaps it is not the case at all. Perhaps all that has happened is that this good is out of place.

For instance take the action and emotion of hate. Many Christians work to eradicate hate from our lives and world because it is “bad”.

However, it is clear that hate is in fact a good thing when in its proper place.

Should we not hate slavery? War? Violence? Abuse? Exploitation?

Perhaps it would benefit our spiritual development if we stopped viewing the world through categories of good and bad. What would it do to our spiritual development if we were able to see the Good in ALL things while noticing when things are just out of place?

Worship as a spiritual feeding tube?

2011-08-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

It it not uncommon to hear the Sunday worship is that place where we go to get "fed" for the week. It is the time in which we learn and worship and are nourished for the coming week.

I have written in the past about worship needs to be more like skiing, less like football and more like soccer and even worship as going up musical stairs.

All of these metaphors have been helpful for me to discuss and think of worship, but the metaphor of being fed has never worked for me.

The only time I can imagine "being fed" is when I cannot feed myself - when I am really young and really old. Even when I order food at a restaurant, I am not being "fed", rather I am given food but I do more than just sit as another feeds me.

So when I think of worship as a place where I am "being fed" I think of a time in which I am unable to do anything and someone else (or something else) does all the work and I just sit there - unable to do anything but spit out or consume the food.

When I hear of people talk of worship as a place where they go to "get fed" I cannot help but desire to wonder at what point do we need to drop this metaphor?

My senior minister asked if I had read The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church by Alan Hirsch. It has been a while (December 2010) but I pulled off my kindle my notes and came across this little gem in light of worship:

"[People] come to "get fed." But is this a faithful image of the church? Is the church really meant to be a "feeding trough" for otherwise capable middle-class people who are getting their careers on track? And to be honest, it is very easy for ministers to cater right into this: the prevailing understanding of leadership is that of the pastor-teacher. People gifted in this way love to teach and care for people, and the congregation in turn loves to outsource learning and to be cared for. I have to admit that this now looks awfully codependent to me."

Just to clarify, codependency in this context is not a great thing.