Do we think apples (unified whole) or oranges (dissected parts)?
Do we dissect the bird to understand it? Or seek to discover it in its natural environment?
How do we approach the Scriptures? God Himself?
1.20.2010
1.14.2010
A Seed...
Something is growing...
I don't know what it is, perhaps only the hope of something.
...but there is a new thing growing inside of me.
I don't know what it is, perhaps only the hope of something.
...but there is a new thing growing inside of me.
1.11.2010
Paul
"Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor..."
From his letter to the Church of Rome
From his letter to the Church of Rome
1.09.2010
1.08.2010
Spiritual Bundle Packs
Time Warner is the local cable service provider in our area.
They offer bundle packages for hi-speed internet, cable tv, and voip phone service; you can pay one bill that includes all of those services. The problem is, you can't have just internet and phone, you have to have the cable service as well to get the discounted rates.
Unfortunately, we have no desire for the television service, and so we can't get the deal on the bundle package.
==============================================
Unfortunately the same thing is true of our faith:
I want to follow Jesus, but unfortunately there are other things 'bundled' to following Jesus that I am not interested in 'subscribing' to. But just like people think I am weird for not watching cable, Christians will think you are weird if you don't sign up for the bundle package deal they are attempting to sell.
==============================================
Political affiliation, specific stances on social issues, affirming or denying specific activities, these and many others are often bundled together with confidence in Jesus. At some points in recent Church history it was quite common for Christians to think of card-playing as a sin. At other points in Church history it would have been unthinkable to hold a Christian worldview without also perceiving of the universe in the geo-centric astronomical model. This would be humorous if there weren't contemporary equivalents...
==============================================
So the real question is, what are the things that I 'bundle' with my faith? Where are the places that I add my own opinions onto those of Jesus? What do I consider essential that Jesus would think peripheral; or that I think peripheral, but Jesus would claim to be central? What do I call good, that my Master would call evil; or those things that I call evil, that my Master would call good?
They offer bundle packages for hi-speed internet, cable tv, and voip phone service; you can pay one bill that includes all of those services. The problem is, you can't have just internet and phone, you have to have the cable service as well to get the discounted rates.
Unfortunately, we have no desire for the television service, and so we can't get the deal on the bundle package.
==============================================
Unfortunately the same thing is true of our faith:
I want to follow Jesus, but unfortunately there are other things 'bundled' to following Jesus that I am not interested in 'subscribing' to. But just like people think I am weird for not watching cable, Christians will think you are weird if you don't sign up for the bundle package deal they are attempting to sell.
==============================================
Political affiliation, specific stances on social issues, affirming or denying specific activities, these and many others are often bundled together with confidence in Jesus. At some points in recent Church history it was quite common for Christians to think of card-playing as a sin. At other points in Church history it would have been unthinkable to hold a Christian worldview without also perceiving of the universe in the geo-centric astronomical model. This would be humorous if there weren't contemporary equivalents...
==============================================
So the real question is, what are the things that I 'bundle' with my faith? Where are the places that I add my own opinions onto those of Jesus? What do I consider essential that Jesus would think peripheral; or that I think peripheral, but Jesus would claim to be central? What do I call good, that my Master would call evil; or those things that I call evil, that my Master would call good?
1.07.2010
Communication
Why is it so hard to understand each other?
Seems like most of the disagreements I have with people aren't actually places where we fail to agree with each other, but rather places where we fail to understand each other.
=======================
Two professors, in a public debate, after spending a good length of time going back and forth, interrupted the evening to address the crowd.
"You have no idea how rare this is," they stated, "the two of us have actually agreed upon our disagreement." They went on, "it is very difficult for two people to ever come to an agreement about the exact point at which they fail to agree, but we have come to that place, and now real debate can actually begin!"
=======================
Too often we are like athletes on a field of contest, I am convinced that you have broken the rules of the game of volleyball, while you are convinced that you are winning the game of soccer. Very rarely do we realize that we are both playing different sports, and reading different rule books...
Seems like most of the disagreements I have with people aren't actually places where we fail to agree with each other, but rather places where we fail to understand each other.
=======================
Two professors, in a public debate, after spending a good length of time going back and forth, interrupted the evening to address the crowd.
"You have no idea how rare this is," they stated, "the two of us have actually agreed upon our disagreement." They went on, "it is very difficult for two people to ever come to an agreement about the exact point at which they fail to agree, but we have come to that place, and now real debate can actually begin!"
=======================
Too often we are like athletes on a field of contest, I am convinced that you have broken the rules of the game of volleyball, while you are convinced that you are winning the game of soccer. Very rarely do we realize that we are both playing different sports, and reading different rule books...
1.03.2010
A PostModern Manifesto
My right to say what I want
And think the way I wanna think
My right
I wanna speak my mind
My right to yell my right to scream
My right
No one's ever gonna
Tell me what I have to do
I'll live my life the way I want
I don't care about your little world
And I can't believe you're telling me
What's good for me how do you know what's good?
And I can't believe you're telling me
What to believe, get away from me - my right
No matter what I do
To you, its one big mistake
Well I'm sick of you I know I'm right
You sleazy money grubbing fake
My right, my life, my soul, my mind
My body, my existence means
That I don't have to listen to you
It's my right cause I'm a human being
And think the way I wanna think
My right
I wanna speak my mind
My right to yell my right to scream
My right
No one's ever gonna
Tell me what I have to do
I'll live my life the way I want
I don't care about your little world
And I can't believe you're telling me
What's good for me how do you know what's good?
And I can't believe you're telling me
What to believe, get away from me - my right
No matter what I do
To you, its one big mistake
Well I'm sick of you I know I'm right
You sleazy money grubbing fake
My right, my life, my soul, my mind
My body, my existence means
That I don't have to listen to you
It's my right cause I'm a human being
12.29.2009
Crazy Days...
I have been given reason to ponder lately...
We have had several people make decisions to leave our community in the past month. We have also had some people decide to move to Buffalo to step intentionally into this community, and a few others who have called to say they are praying about moving here.
We also have relationship with several people who still look to us for pastoral care and friendship, but no longer want to be a part of our church community, and are now involved in another church here in the city.
In the midst of all of this, we have had some struggles financially, nothing traumatic, just a little boat rocking...
And just today we had another church in the area offer to support us financially in what we are doing.
Taken together, it all has my head spinning a little.
======================
It all has me pondering about relationships.
So just what is a healthy way to leave a church?
What are legitimate reasons for Christians to pick up and move?
What is a healthy relationship between churches supposed to look like?
How does Christian community work with people who belong to different church communities?
How should we respond to Christians who leave their church to join ours?
======================
When it comes to moving and leaving, I think, more than anything else, the process is the important part of the equation. The outcomes may vary from situation to situation, but there are certain fixed points in the way in which the decisions should be made:
1) Decisions should come out of community discernment not individual desire.
2) We should have the blessing of the community.
3) We should have a clear sense of the underlying motivations to our decision.
And a few cautions to think through:
1) Relational funkiness should never be a reason to leave.
2) If I am unwilling or unable to do something here and now, then it is imprudent to think I will be doing that something there and then.
3) I am the cause of most of my problems, and I will be going with me.
4) The grass is rarely greener on the other side of the fence, but when it is, we are probably called to stay and water the grass on our side.
======================
I am still thinking about relationships with other churches, but I do think there is at least one thing I am sure of:
When people show up to my church from another church, I have an obligation to their spiritual well-being to make sure they have the blessing of their former community.
We have had several people make decisions to leave our community in the past month. We have also had some people decide to move to Buffalo to step intentionally into this community, and a few others who have called to say they are praying about moving here.
We also have relationship with several people who still look to us for pastoral care and friendship, but no longer want to be a part of our church community, and are now involved in another church here in the city.
In the midst of all of this, we have had some struggles financially, nothing traumatic, just a little boat rocking...
And just today we had another church in the area offer to support us financially in what we are doing.
Taken together, it all has my head spinning a little.
======================
It all has me pondering about relationships.
So just what is a healthy way to leave a church?
What are legitimate reasons for Christians to pick up and move?
What is a healthy relationship between churches supposed to look like?
How does Christian community work with people who belong to different church communities?
How should we respond to Christians who leave their church to join ours?
======================
When it comes to moving and leaving, I think, more than anything else, the process is the important part of the equation. The outcomes may vary from situation to situation, but there are certain fixed points in the way in which the decisions should be made:
1) Decisions should come out of community discernment not individual desire.
2) We should have the blessing of the community.
3) We should have a clear sense of the underlying motivations to our decision.
And a few cautions to think through:
1) Relational funkiness should never be a reason to leave.
2) If I am unwilling or unable to do something here and now, then it is imprudent to think I will be doing that something there and then.
3) I am the cause of most of my problems, and I will be going with me.
4) The grass is rarely greener on the other side of the fence, but when it is, we are probably called to stay and water the grass on our side.
======================
I am still thinking about relationships with other churches, but I do think there is at least one thing I am sure of:
When people show up to my church from another church, I have an obligation to their spiritual well-being to make sure they have the blessing of their former community.
12.26.2009
Christmas/Birthday Fun
Here are pics of the kids enjoying presents from Zane's B-day, and from Christmas...
12.25.2009
Emmanuel: Christmas Reflections
An Unexpected King and an Upside Down Kingdom:
We read in John's prologue that Jesus came to the world that He made, and that world didn't want Him. Jesus' life is framed by a birth in a feeding trough, and a death by public execution. Hardly the way a king should enter the world, or leave it. Of course His birth was announced by battalions of angels, but they sang only to shepherds; and He did rise and then ascend, but only a few women and fishermen were witness...
God's power and glory look very different than we might imagine. This is Emmanuel, God with us; and it isn't what we could have thought up for ourselves. In fact, it turns out that our notions of the gods are almost stood on their heads when the real God actually does show up.
Becoming One of Us:
Jesus, the Second Adam, is not merely God among us, but God become one of us. Fully God, and fully man.
Colossians 1:15-20 gives us a picture of a Cosmic Savior, a fully divine being, and an exact representation of God. Hebrews 2:14-18 paints a picture of the perfect human, a flesh-and-blood savior, and a perfect image of humanity as it should be. Hebrews 4:14-16 goes on to explain the significance of Jesus nature. Because He is a perfect representative of heaven, and of humanity, He gives us access to the throne of grace.
Christmas is Jesus bridging heaven and earth. I would turn to my Kenyan friend Dus to prepare for a trip to Kenya, or to my Rwandan friend David for information about Rwandan culture, precisely because they live here, but came from there. I can turn to Jesus to find access to God's Kingdom, precisely because in his very person He has brought heaven to earth.
Affirming our Humanity in Order to Heal It:
The leper approaches, even though he knows he shouldn't. He is banished from human contact, yet desperate hope propels him forward, "If you are willing, you can heal me!" Jesus doesn't heal him.
He touches him!
It is not until after Jesus affirms this man's humanity, proclaims his dignity and worth as a son of Adam, that Jesus speaks the word of healing that ends leprosy. First, Jesus chose to deal with the spiritual leprosy of alienation and humiliation.
Emmanuel is God touching us in the exact places where we have surrendered to sin's dehumanizing effects. He places His hands on us, not on the clean parts, but on the wounds, the ugliness, the blood and puss, the stench, the filth... It is only after He proclaims us loved and cherished by the Father that He then restores us. Christmas is God with dirty feet, stained clothes, bloody head, and pierced palms; entering our world fully.
We read in John's prologue that Jesus came to the world that He made, and that world didn't want Him. Jesus' life is framed by a birth in a feeding trough, and a death by public execution. Hardly the way a king should enter the world, or leave it. Of course His birth was announced by battalions of angels, but they sang only to shepherds; and He did rise and then ascend, but only a few women and fishermen were witness...
God's power and glory look very different than we might imagine. This is Emmanuel, God with us; and it isn't what we could have thought up for ourselves. In fact, it turns out that our notions of the gods are almost stood on their heads when the real God actually does show up.
Becoming One of Us:
Jesus, the Second Adam, is not merely God among us, but God become one of us. Fully God, and fully man.
Colossians 1:15-20 gives us a picture of a Cosmic Savior, a fully divine being, and an exact representation of God. Hebrews 2:14-18 paints a picture of the perfect human, a flesh-and-blood savior, and a perfect image of humanity as it should be. Hebrews 4:14-16 goes on to explain the significance of Jesus nature. Because He is a perfect representative of heaven, and of humanity, He gives us access to the throne of grace.
Christmas is Jesus bridging heaven and earth. I would turn to my Kenyan friend Dus to prepare for a trip to Kenya, or to my Rwandan friend David for information about Rwandan culture, precisely because they live here, but came from there. I can turn to Jesus to find access to God's Kingdom, precisely because in his very person He has brought heaven to earth.
Affirming our Humanity in Order to Heal It:
The leper approaches, even though he knows he shouldn't. He is banished from human contact, yet desperate hope propels him forward, "If you are willing, you can heal me!" Jesus doesn't heal him.
He touches him!
It is not until after Jesus affirms this man's humanity, proclaims his dignity and worth as a son of Adam, that Jesus speaks the word of healing that ends leprosy. First, Jesus chose to deal with the spiritual leprosy of alienation and humiliation.
Emmanuel is God touching us in the exact places where we have surrendered to sin's dehumanizing effects. He places His hands on us, not on the clean parts, but on the wounds, the ugliness, the blood and puss, the stench, the filth... It is only after He proclaims us loved and cherished by the Father that He then restores us. Christmas is God with dirty feet, stained clothes, bloody head, and pierced palms; entering our world fully.
12.24.2009
Good and Evil
"But abuse does not destroy the proper use."
NT Wright tossed this little phrase into paragraph about political power, but it implies a definition of good and evil that bears exploring and repeating.
===========================
Sin is not a thing. Evil is not a thing.
Good is a thing (or rather many things). Pleasure, beauty, purpose, power, existence! These are good, in and of themselves. Some of the typical targets of Christian vilification, sex, alcohol, dancing, gambling, tobacco, etc. are not evil, nor is engaging them inherently sinful.
They are not evil, because evil is not a thing!
Evil is the perversion of good, not its opposite. Therefore adultery is the sin, not sexual pleasure; drunkenness is the sin, not alcohol; addiction not smoking; titillation not dancing; you get the picture. Something is evil when it takes some good thing and misuses it; a public official using his political clout to oppress the poor; a woman using her beauty to diminish other women; enjoying the pleasure of food with no regard to issues of larger importance; separating sexual intimacy from personal intimacy; again, you get the picture.
Sin, truly, is "missing the mark."
===========================
...and so, we must realize that engaging in perverse behavior is no greater an evil than abstaining (or encouraging others to abstain) from behavior that is healthy!
Of course, there are appropriate times to set aside pleasurable and otherwise good activities (1 Corinthians 8:13), but there is the equal danger of allowing prudish people to set the agenda in a way that denies the inherent goodness of God's creation (Colossians 2:16-23).
Jesus is the Lord of Life, who has come to share that abundant life with us, and we must learn to embrace His creative goodness. We can no longer be the prudish people who cannot talk about sex without getting red cheeks and hot collars, instead, we must begin to recognize (and to teach the world) that it is not the porn star who is sexual, but the monogamous husband and wife. We are the possessors of the reality, of which the world has only parody.
===========================
Our witness is hampered by drunkenness, surely; but we must begin to acknowledge that our witness is just as tarnished by an inability to enjoy fine wine.
NT Wright tossed this little phrase into paragraph about political power, but it implies a definition of good and evil that bears exploring and repeating.
===========================
Sin is not a thing. Evil is not a thing.
Good is a thing (or rather many things). Pleasure, beauty, purpose, power, existence! These are good, in and of themselves. Some of the typical targets of Christian vilification, sex, alcohol, dancing, gambling, tobacco, etc. are not evil, nor is engaging them inherently sinful.
They are not evil, because evil is not a thing!
Evil is the perversion of good, not its opposite. Therefore adultery is the sin, not sexual pleasure; drunkenness is the sin, not alcohol; addiction not smoking; titillation not dancing; you get the picture. Something is evil when it takes some good thing and misuses it; a public official using his political clout to oppress the poor; a woman using her beauty to diminish other women; enjoying the pleasure of food with no regard to issues of larger importance; separating sexual intimacy from personal intimacy; again, you get the picture.
Sin, truly, is "missing the mark."
===========================
...and so, we must realize that engaging in perverse behavior is no greater an evil than abstaining (or encouraging others to abstain) from behavior that is healthy!
Of course, there are appropriate times to set aside pleasurable and otherwise good activities (1 Corinthians 8:13), but there is the equal danger of allowing prudish people to set the agenda in a way that denies the inherent goodness of God's creation (Colossians 2:16-23).
Jesus is the Lord of Life, who has come to share that abundant life with us, and we must learn to embrace His creative goodness. We can no longer be the prudish people who cannot talk about sex without getting red cheeks and hot collars, instead, we must begin to recognize (and to teach the world) that it is not the porn star who is sexual, but the monogamous husband and wife. We are the possessors of the reality, of which the world has only parody.
===========================
Our witness is hampered by drunkenness, surely; but we must begin to acknowledge that our witness is just as tarnished by an inability to enjoy fine wine.
12.22.2009
NT Wright
... once God decides (with the call of Abraham) to work to address the problem of evil through people who are part of the problem as well as part of the solution, there is going to be an awful lot of messiness, which will reach its climax when God not only gets his feet muddy with the mess of the world but his hands bloody with the nails of the world.
12.20.2009
On Earth as it is in Heaven
"We cannot, then, pray the Lord's Prayer and acquiesce in the power and glory of Caesar's kingdom. If the church is not prepared to subvert the kingdoms of the world with the kingdom of God, the only honest thing would be to give up praying the Lord's Prayer altogether."
NT Wright
(Taken from the article linked in the title)
NT Wright
(Taken from the article linked in the title)
12.18.2009
12.17.2009
Open Hands
It is such a difficult thing to hold God's gifts to us with open hands, instead we 'white-knuckle it,' holding tightly to what we have...
...and in so doing we are telling God we don't trust Him. If He were to take away what He has given us, we feel we are lost. What does this say about us? What does this say about our faith in the Giver?
St Paul says that he 'had nothing, yet possessed everything." (2 cor 6:10)
...and in so doing we are telling God we don't trust Him. If He were to take away what He has given us, we feel we are lost. What does this say about us? What does this say about our faith in the Giver?
St Paul says that he 'had nothing, yet possessed everything." (2 cor 6:10)
12.14.2009
Theology
Jesus chose fishermen.
How does that communicate theology?
========================
What theology is communicated by our practices?
How does that communicate theology?
========================
What theology is communicated by our practices?
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