i'm just now realizing that the "common time" teaching atlas, second in the "seasons of christian spirituality" series is now 30th atlas.
30. wow. that's a lot of books, a lot of research, and a lot of writing.
the early atlases were amateurish at best, but they got a lot better over the years. in true bull-in-a-china-shop mcdonald fashion, i've blundered my way from sermon transcripts to something much more like a phd thesis (with charm, though) published every 4-6 weeks.
whew.
i feel proud about how far i've come, and exceedingly glad at how many other people all over the world have contacted me and thanked me for making these resources available on amazon.com and through westwinds. but mostly, i feel thankful. i feel thankful to god for placing me in a spot where i can do this. i feel thankful to carmel and the kids for putting up with me when i do this. i feel thankful to the staff at the winds who pick up the slack while i do this. and i feel thankful for the windies who gobble it up everytime i finish doing this.
god is good,
and so are you.
here's to better and better resources, and a better experience with god, for another 30 installments or so!
D
Showing posts with label fusion etc.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fusion etc.. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
why go to church
there are many reasons - biblical, social, familial, etc - but the one i find most compelling is that church is a place where we surrender control.
at church, as part of a community of believers, we trust that the holy spirit speaks to us through:
music we might not like
a sermon we did not choose
people we might not know
a time and place that is beyond our control
an experience we would never have designed
strangers we would never have met and would never have been forced to confront
christian men and women who can be prompted by the spirit to speak things into our life that
we might never choose to hear
scriptures and songs themed towards issues we may never have otherwise considered
the needs of others about which we would have remained ignorant
in short - church is a place where a million things happen...sometimes randomly, sometimes chaordically, sometimes intentionally...and the spirit works through all of those to penetrate our lethargy, our apathy, and our indifference.
when we come to church with an open and receptive heart, we are changed every time.
that's why we should go to church.
at church, as part of a community of believers, we trust that the holy spirit speaks to us through:
music we might not like
a sermon we did not choose
people we might not know
a time and place that is beyond our control
an experience we would never have designed
strangers we would never have met and would never have been forced to confront
christian men and women who can be prompted by the spirit to speak things into our life that
we might never choose to hear
scriptures and songs themed towards issues we may never have otherwise considered
the needs of others about which we would have remained ignorant
in short - church is a place where a million things happen...sometimes randomly, sometimes chaordically, sometimes intentionally...and the spirit works through all of those to penetrate our lethargy, our apathy, and our indifference.
when we come to church with an open and receptive heart, we are changed every time.
that's why we should go to church.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Pocket Gods (a story i wrote, and told, christmas eve 2009 for the people of westwinds)
Imagine a world where people carry around gods in their pockets, using them like charms to get what they want, be who they wish, and live however they like.
That’s our world, tonight.
Matthetes smiled as he jingled his new gods, jumbling them in his pockets like a potpourri of coins and marbles.
His Dad had given him his first god when he was thirteen – just a man. His first god was Ambition. Ambition had served him well, making him first in his class and head of school, landing him great job opportunities and a bright future.
But Ambition didn’t keep you warm at night, so Matthetes had run out and – with the help of a slender woman named Porneia – purchased Flesh. Flesh was a much better god than Ambition – more fun, more easily sated in the short term – but more difficult to manage. Flesh and Ambition didn’t always get along well, so Matthetes kept them – at first – in separate pockets.
Now, however, he felt like he should keep all his gods together – so Flesh and Ambition wrestled in his pants pocket with Media (to keep him informed), Fitness (to keep him healthy), and Downline (a demi-god that was supposed to temper Ambition with Relationship).
Matthetes had a full compliment of divinity with him at all times, and it paid off.
He was successful, contentented, fit, young, and eager.
He had it all.
At least he thought he did, until he met Rab. Rab was perched on a park bench drinking tea when Matthetes stumbled into him blindly.
Apologizing, Matthetes took the opportunity to introduce himself to his accidental companion.
With that, and a smile, Rab excused himself and walked off singing.
Matthetes reached into his pocket to play with his gods, eager to comfort himself after this strange exchange…but his gods were gone.
He had been robbed.
Scoundrel. He thought. Rab has robbed me, distracted me with cleverness and stolen my gods from the pockets of my pants, all the while binding my mind with his spell.
Rotter.
Matthetes skipped the health food store and the gym, but made up for it with two extra drinks with Cindi and Kandi. He woke up feeling stone-headed.
He went and got himself new gods on the way to work.
Truthfully, he had gotten tired of Flesh and Ambition was killing him,
so he grabbed Media and Downline
and Diet (Fitness was too expensive, but Diets were on sale)
and added Economy (because it was so focused)
and Novelty (because Flesh was too focused)
and spent the week trying them out.
He gave himself fully to the gods in his pocket but worried that something was wrong.
They didn’t work anymore.
He had minor success with his Downline, but couldn’t ever get his Diet to work. His Economy was always hampered by his love of Novelty – which seemed to deteriorate into Flesh anyhow.
He begged Media for an explanation, but he got an explanation for everything so he couldn’t remember the thing he had asked about.
Matthetes became disillusioned with his gods, then, and threw them all away. All his life he’d wanted, then got, then lost, then got, then been disappointed by, his gods.
And now they were gone.
And he felt no differently.
So he went to get the new God put into his heart.
It wasn’t as bad as Rab had made it out to be.
The surgery was invasive, but didn’t hurt as much as he’d anticipated.
The ritual was spooky, but it was the good-spooky
(more mystical, less haunting).
The alchemy was almost non-existent, though everyone attending assured Matthetes that a transformation had – in fact – taken place.
All in all, Matthetes was quite happy with his new God.
And he noticed a positive difference in his life right away. He felt more generous – giving away some of the money he’d squeezed and hoarded cheerfully – and he felt more loving – giving up girls who’s names sounded like Disney characters for a new gal he’d met, named Suzanne (she was a grad student, and an artist) – and he felt more…well, happy.
He was just plain happier.
This bliss lasted for a time, a season, who knows really how long it was…but then abruptly went away.
It was the oddest thing. Matthetes could feel God in his heart. He knew the God-in-his-heart was still there. Just as he had felt the God-in-his-heart alive and growing inside of him while being generous and loving and happy, so now he felt the God-in-his-heart even more alive and growing even larger inside of him.
But his life was going very poorly.
His job seemed meaningless and his friendships felt shallow and unfulfilling.
But still the God-in-his-heart continued to grow.
Suzanne was fantastic, but every time Matthetes was around her he felt sad and conflicted.
And the God-in-his-heart grew inside of him.
It felt like the God-in-his-heart wanted Matthetes to be living a completely different life – like nothing less would make the God-in-his-heart happy – and so Matthetes, instead of invoking the God in his heart like he’d conjured the pocket gods – felt like all he could do to satisfy God was completely change everything about him.
Because the God-in-his-heart was getting bigger inside of him.
So he quit his job, realizing that Ambition had given it to him and that the job itself was only a reminder of how empty he’d felt while petting the Ambition in his pocket.
And he distanced himself from his friends, because he knew that his Downline was still meddling in the purity of his relationships and he didn’t want his friends to be exploited anymore.
And he finally, sadly, even broke things off with Suzanne because she felt like Novelty but didn’t deserve it, and he treated her like Flesh even though she was more to him than that.
Matthetes, he tried to explain to them all, had to do this. It wasn’t even really him, but the God in his heart that had compelled him to act.
And, of course, all of this was so confusing because the pocket gods – the ones everyone had and everyone understood – always did what you wanted whereas the God in Matthetes heart had control of him and could never be used or employed to simply do what Matthetes wanted.
Everything was backwards now.
And the God-in-his-heart grew bigger still.
The God-in-his-heart grew – and Matthetes sold everything he owned and gave it to the poor.
The God-in-his-heart grew – and Matthetes went back to every person he’d ever wronged, or deceived, or cheated and made amends.
The God-in-his-heart grew – and Matthetes went on a journey, a pilgrimage, into the wilderness to (re)discover who he was and why he was alive.
It was miserable.
It was profoundly difficult.
Matthetes had lost it all.
He had nothing.
And the God-in-his-heart continued to grow inside of him.
As he was completely emptied out of all his Ambition,
his love for Flesh,
his addiction to Media,
his fantasy of Fitness and Diet and Novelty;
as his need for the pocket gods vanished Matthetes was left with only one certainty in all the world.
The God in his heart would always continue to grow.
And from that central truth he took strength.
The God-in-his-heart grew – and so would he.
That was the turning point – working together with the God-in-his-heart, cooperating with the God-in-his-heart,
Matthetes began to learn about achievement without pride,
love without lust,
pleasure without novelty,
health without anxiety,
economy without greed,
friendship without agenda…
His whole life was different.
He returned from his journey a new man.
The first person he went to see was Suzanne.
That’s our world, tonight.
Matthetes smiled as he jingled his new gods, jumbling them in his pockets like a potpourri of coins and marbles.
His Dad had given him his first god when he was thirteen – just a man. His first god was Ambition. Ambition had served him well, making him first in his class and head of school, landing him great job opportunities and a bright future.
But Ambition didn’t keep you warm at night, so Matthetes had run out and – with the help of a slender woman named Porneia – purchased Flesh. Flesh was a much better god than Ambition – more fun, more easily sated in the short term – but more difficult to manage. Flesh and Ambition didn’t always get along well, so Matthetes kept them – at first – in separate pockets.
Now, however, he felt like he should keep all his gods together – so Flesh and Ambition wrestled in his pants pocket with Media (to keep him informed), Fitness (to keep him healthy), and Downline (a demi-god that was supposed to temper Ambition with Relationship).
Matthetes had a full compliment of divinity with him at all times, and it paid off.
He was successful, contentented, fit, young, and eager.
He had it all.
At least he thought he did, until he met Rab. Rab was perched on a park bench drinking tea when Matthetes stumbled into him blindly.
Apologizing, Matthetes took the opportunity to introduce himself to his accidental companion.
Pardon me.
No problem at all, friend.
Really? I’m terribly sorry…name’s Matthetes.
Rab – the pleasure is all mine.
I was just coming back from the office, en route to the health food store before a stop at the gym, a nip at the bar, a short session at the studio, and then home for bed with Cindi…sorry, Kandi.
I was just thinking.
Pardon?
Thinking. I was appreciating this life and how grateful I am to be living it.
Matthetes had never heard anyone put it quite like that.
Me too. Would you like to join me?
At the store, the gym, the bar, the studio or with the confusing woman at your house?
Why…I guess any of it.
No thank you.
Suddenly curious: do you mind if I ask why not?
I have no need.
But won’t your gods be angry?
Ha! No. My God is not angered by a lack of busyness.
It’s more than just busyness, you know.
I know many things, but in that regard I confess an ignorance. I have traded my knowledge of Ambition for something sweeter. I have given up my understanding of the Fast Lane for the Narrow Way.
What are you talking about?
I am talking about God.
I know all about the gods…
No – you keep trinkets in your pants and call them divine. They are not. Just as you are not. Long ago I gave up my pocket gods and had God Himself put inside me. I’ve never since been the same.
That sounds….strange. Was it worth it?
Oh yes – it has been the most wonderful thing.
Then I shall have it done, too.
Oh no – my friend – I would not let you do that so recklessly. The process is called an Invitation – some combination of surgery (for it is invasive), and ritual (for it is mystical), and alchemy (for it is transformational) – is awful and painful and I shake to think of it still.
But you said it was worth it.
And it so was. It is. It ever more shall be. But I would not advise you to have God put inside you on a whim. He is too big for that.
Big?
And jealous. And greedy. And he grows.
No problem at all, friend.
Really? I’m terribly sorry…name’s Matthetes.
Rab – the pleasure is all mine.
I was just coming back from the office, en route to the health food store before a stop at the gym, a nip at the bar, a short session at the studio, and then home for bed with Cindi…sorry, Kandi.
I was just thinking.
Pardon?
Thinking. I was appreciating this life and how grateful I am to be living it.
Matthetes had never heard anyone put it quite like that.
Me too. Would you like to join me?
At the store, the gym, the bar, the studio or with the confusing woman at your house?
Why…I guess any of it.
No thank you.
Suddenly curious: do you mind if I ask why not?
I have no need.
But won’t your gods be angry?
Ha! No. My God is not angered by a lack of busyness.
It’s more than just busyness, you know.
I know many things, but in that regard I confess an ignorance. I have traded my knowledge of Ambition for something sweeter. I have given up my understanding of the Fast Lane for the Narrow Way.
What are you talking about?
I am talking about God.
I know all about the gods…
No – you keep trinkets in your pants and call them divine. They are not. Just as you are not. Long ago I gave up my pocket gods and had God Himself put inside me. I’ve never since been the same.
That sounds….strange. Was it worth it?
Oh yes – it has been the most wonderful thing.
Then I shall have it done, too.
Oh no – my friend – I would not let you do that so recklessly. The process is called an Invitation – some combination of surgery (for it is invasive), and ritual (for it is mystical), and alchemy (for it is transformational) – is awful and painful and I shake to think of it still.
But you said it was worth it.
And it so was. It is. It ever more shall be. But I would not advise you to have God put inside you on a whim. He is too big for that.
Big?
And jealous. And greedy. And he grows.
With that, and a smile, Rab excused himself and walked off singing.
Matthetes reached into his pocket to play with his gods, eager to comfort himself after this strange exchange…but his gods were gone.
He had been robbed.
Scoundrel. He thought. Rab has robbed me, distracted me with cleverness and stolen my gods from the pockets of my pants, all the while binding my mind with his spell.
Rotter.
Matthetes skipped the health food store and the gym, but made up for it with two extra drinks with Cindi and Kandi. He woke up feeling stone-headed.
He went and got himself new gods on the way to work.
Truthfully, he had gotten tired of Flesh and Ambition was killing him,
so he grabbed Media and Downline
and Diet (Fitness was too expensive, but Diets were on sale)
and added Economy (because it was so focused)
and Novelty (because Flesh was too focused)
and spent the week trying them out.
He gave himself fully to the gods in his pocket but worried that something was wrong.
They didn’t work anymore.
He had minor success with his Downline, but couldn’t ever get his Diet to work. His Economy was always hampered by his love of Novelty – which seemed to deteriorate into Flesh anyhow.
He begged Media for an explanation, but he got an explanation for everything so he couldn’t remember the thing he had asked about.
Matthetes became disillusioned with his gods, then, and threw them all away. All his life he’d wanted, then got, then lost, then got, then been disappointed by, his gods.
And now they were gone.
And he felt no differently.
So he went to get the new God put into his heart.
It wasn’t as bad as Rab had made it out to be.
The surgery was invasive, but didn’t hurt as much as he’d anticipated.
The ritual was spooky, but it was the good-spooky
(more mystical, less haunting).
The alchemy was almost non-existent, though everyone attending assured Matthetes that a transformation had – in fact – taken place.
All in all, Matthetes was quite happy with his new God.
And he noticed a positive difference in his life right away. He felt more generous – giving away some of the money he’d squeezed and hoarded cheerfully – and he felt more loving – giving up girls who’s names sounded like Disney characters for a new gal he’d met, named Suzanne (she was a grad student, and an artist) – and he felt more…well, happy.
He was just plain happier.
This bliss lasted for a time, a season, who knows really how long it was…but then abruptly went away.
It was the oddest thing. Matthetes could feel God in his heart. He knew the God-in-his-heart was still there. Just as he had felt the God-in-his-heart alive and growing inside of him while being generous and loving and happy, so now he felt the God-in-his-heart even more alive and growing even larger inside of him.
But his life was going very poorly.
His job seemed meaningless and his friendships felt shallow and unfulfilling.
But still the God-in-his-heart continued to grow.
Suzanne was fantastic, but every time Matthetes was around her he felt sad and conflicted.
And the God-in-his-heart grew inside of him.
It felt like the God-in-his-heart wanted Matthetes to be living a completely different life – like nothing less would make the God-in-his-heart happy – and so Matthetes, instead of invoking the God in his heart like he’d conjured the pocket gods – felt like all he could do to satisfy God was completely change everything about him.
Because the God-in-his-heart was getting bigger inside of him.
So he quit his job, realizing that Ambition had given it to him and that the job itself was only a reminder of how empty he’d felt while petting the Ambition in his pocket.
And he distanced himself from his friends, because he knew that his Downline was still meddling in the purity of his relationships and he didn’t want his friends to be exploited anymore.
And he finally, sadly, even broke things off with Suzanne because she felt like Novelty but didn’t deserve it, and he treated her like Flesh even though she was more to him than that.
Matthetes, he tried to explain to them all, had to do this. It wasn’t even really him, but the God in his heart that had compelled him to act.
And, of course, all of this was so confusing because the pocket gods – the ones everyone had and everyone understood – always did what you wanted whereas the God in Matthetes heart had control of him and could never be used or employed to simply do what Matthetes wanted.
Everything was backwards now.
And the God-in-his-heart grew bigger still.
The God-in-his-heart grew – and Matthetes sold everything he owned and gave it to the poor.
The God-in-his-heart grew – and Matthetes went back to every person he’d ever wronged, or deceived, or cheated and made amends.
The God-in-his-heart grew – and Matthetes went on a journey, a pilgrimage, into the wilderness to (re)discover who he was and why he was alive.
It was miserable.
It was profoundly difficult.
Matthetes had lost it all.
He had nothing.
And the God-in-his-heart continued to grow inside of him.
As he was completely emptied out of all his Ambition,
his love for Flesh,
his addiction to Media,
his fantasy of Fitness and Diet and Novelty;
as his need for the pocket gods vanished Matthetes was left with only one certainty in all the world.
The God in his heart would always continue to grow.
And from that central truth he took strength.
The God-in-his-heart grew – and so would he.
That was the turning point – working together with the God-in-his-heart, cooperating with the God-in-his-heart,
Matthetes began to learn about achievement without pride,
love without lust,
pleasure without novelty,
health without anxiety,
economy without greed,
friendship without agenda…
His whole life was different.
He returned from his journey a new man.
The first person he went to see was Suzanne.
Suzanne – I was just thinking about this life, and appreciating it. I have traded my knowledge of Ambition for something sweeter. I have given up my understanding of the Fast Lane for the Narrow Way.
Would you like to join me?
It won’t be easy to have God inside you, but I can tell you it will be worth it.
Would you like to join me?
It won’t be easy to have God inside you, but I can tell you it will be worth it.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
top 10 ways in which the Centre is different than the Cue
since we recently began our new mid-week experience, folks have been asking us "what's so different about the Centre?"
they want to know how the-wednesday-stuff is different than the-sunday-stuff
well, here's a quick list to give you a picture about why the centre is one of the most meaningful and engaging spiritual venues we've ever had.
10 ways in which the Centre is different than the Cue
10. greater freedom for spontaneity
9. giving 100% of our offering to Missions
8. welcoming young kids to participate in the service
7. emphasis on prayer
6. more intimate atmosphere
5. great access to Westwinds’ staff and elders
4. more congregational worship music
3. additional opportunities for community both before and after the service
2. highlight scriptural tools and integration
1. teaching only the words of Jesus
they want to know how the-wednesday-stuff is different than the-sunday-stuff
well, here's a quick list to give you a picture about why the centre is one of the most meaningful and engaging spiritual venues we've ever had.
10 ways in which the Centre is different than the Cue
10. greater freedom for spontaneity
9. giving 100% of our offering to Missions
8. welcoming young kids to participate in the service
7. emphasis on prayer
6. more intimate atmosphere
5. great access to Westwinds’ staff and elders
4. more congregational worship music
3. additional opportunities for community both before and after the service
2. highlight scriptural tools and integration
1. teaching only the words of Jesus
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
test-run: intro to archetypes atlas
People are like snowflakes,
individual,
irrepeatable,
unique.
So listen up, Snowflake, your individuality isn’t just something for you to feel good about, it’s a key component of your identity and mission in this world.
That’s right – who you are, in large part, will help you understand what you’re supposed to do.
God made people to look after this world, and to look after one another, and to look after ourselves in relationship to Him. God designed us as stewards – like butlers for the Earth-mansion – and our primary task in this life is to be obedient to God and His designs for our lives.
What – specifically – are those designs? Well, we get to choose.
Based on our personality,
our experience,
our learning style and our kind of intelligence,
based on our spiritual gifts and our sacred pathways,
we choose what we want to do
to cooperate with God
in healing the world
we choose what we want to do
for work
or play
what our hobbies and our interests are
who we will love
and what we will wear.
We get to choose a lot.
But to be good – to be good stewards, good lovers and followers of the God who made us all – every choice we make should be in service to this one ideal:
healing the world.
The world is sick,
hurting,
starving,
fighting,
dying,
deceptive,
confrontational,
manipulative,
commodifying,
depersonalizing,
commercializing,
ugly,
foul,
vulgar,
coarse,
and icky.
In short, it’s not the way it’s supposed to be.
It’s not the way God made it.
That’s where you come in.
Snowflake.
Your unique gifts and abilities,
your singular perspective on this world,
in this life,
with those around you
has been given to you by God
so you can cooperate with Him
in healing the world
in setting everything wrong back to rights
big and small
near and far
noticeable and unnoticed
but present nonetheless.
So this book, Archetypes, is designed to help you figure out who you are and what you should be doing to be obedient to God, to your calling as His steward, and to love every minute of it.
So get crackin’, Snowflake, the world’s going to hell in a hand basket unless you decide to dive in and do your part. Good news is, once you learn your part you’re gonna love it, you’re gonna rock it, and pretty soon it’ll be you who gets to poke and prod, provoke and plague the newbies about their need to get in the game too.
Cheers.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Monday, June 01, 2009
up twit creek without a paddle
after all the hullabaloo i figure it's time for me to weigh in a little bit on the is-it-ok-to-tweet-in-church dialogue.
but, honestly, it feels like a fantastically stupid conversation to be having in the first place.
i mean, we all agree that worship is about elevating Jesus Christ
we all agree that church is about gathering lovers and followers of Jesus for encouragement, community, mission, instruction (and a host of other biblically substantive ecclesial functions)
we all agree that the container of the church looks different (and, in fact, SHOULD look different) in various cultural settings
and we all agree that the culture of the 21st C West is changing at a rapid pace driven by the powerful forces of media, economy, globalism, and technology
so...in context of all that, why is there even a debate about twitter?
twitter is a tool and, like any tool, can be used in service to the mission of the church or not.
it's like a drum stick...you can play drums, or stab your sister in the eye.
honestly, that's the entire issue right there.
end of story.
those who say that twitter subverts the spirituality of churches are only right if some moron is using twitter as a way to be cool or try and grab a few headlines.
we're cool.
we've grabbed a few headlines because of twitter.
but we never used twitter for that reason.
the controversy surrounding twitter is much like the controversy surrounding drums in church, contemporary worship choruses, and video screens for use in worship.
there are those early adopters who will use just about anything as an expression of worship. strangely enough, some of us early adopters are actually quite critical regarding the ways we use these things...instead of our oft-parodied caricature which depicts us as rabid, slathering webheads with a fetish for technolust and video games.
on the other end of the spectrum, we have a group of folks who seem content to worship in a time machine. these folks often bring up great arguments against thoughtless uses of new tech/experiences. but, truthfully, i've yet to read one single article or blog post that levels any more significant criticism that the w:impotent thought that we "must be doing this to be cool."
to me, it all sounds like:
drums? hell, no!
screens? blasphemy!
twitter? same to you!
as for john piper, who so recently blogged that he'd never tweet during sex with his wife, or tweet praying with the dying, etc...
i appreciate what he's getting at, but he's really overstating for effect. and, i don't agree 100% with his commentary on the natural fragility of spiritual connecting and exultation.
furthermore, there are many things i'd do in church that i wouldn't do while in bed with my wife.
for example:
i don't sing songs in bed
or give money
or read a bulletin
or invite thousands of my closest friends to share in the experience with me
but i do all of those things every week in church.
it feels odd to say it, but - John Piper - church and sex are different.
anyway, on a more personal note, i suppose it's worth mentioning that i was once very opposed to twittering. i don't have the time for new social media (i never check my facebook, and i hardly blog), and some of the fruit i was seeing from twitter in the lives of my friends early on made me suspicious.
but my friend John Voelz challenged me: do we really believe that the gospel should be lived, and shared, and demonstrated in the cultural containers of our day...or not?
i signed up for twitter...reluctantly, almost clandestinely...and had my mind changed through the experience.
as a pastor of a larger church i don't have the time for 1-on-1 counseling like i used to.
i can't afford to take everyone out for coffee each week like i did as a college pastor.
i certainly can't seem to squeeze in time to discover everybody's personality quirks and idiosyncrasies - those things that make them beautiful.
but - once i began the T - i found that i got 90% of what i used to get through some basic, mostly banal, 140 character exchanges.
don't get me wrong: twitter isn't the shiznit.
it's just a convenient little tool
that almost 1/3 of our church uses every single day
to stay in touch
to laugh
to pray
to encourage
and to be together.
so of course we'd use it in church. our people were using it in church before we ever had a "tweet during church" event. it has been a natural extension of who we are and how we live in this liquid world.
but church isn't about twitter. the tweets are just a way to probe, locate, ask questions, reflect, play, and make the worship gatherings more interactive...more participatory.
after all, we want our people to engage what's happening
especially when we're teaching the scriptures
and - like it or not - people don't do that well when they're told to just sit still and listen to the old white man behind the pulpit.
(sheesh!)
but, honestly, it feels like a fantastically stupid conversation to be having in the first place.
i mean, we all agree that worship is about elevating Jesus Christ
we all agree that church is about gathering lovers and followers of Jesus for encouragement, community, mission, instruction (and a host of other biblically substantive ecclesial functions)
we all agree that the container of the church looks different (and, in fact, SHOULD look different) in various cultural settings
and we all agree that the culture of the 21st C West is changing at a rapid pace driven by the powerful forces of media, economy, globalism, and technology
so...in context of all that, why is there even a debate about twitter?
twitter is a tool and, like any tool, can be used in service to the mission of the church or not.
it's like a drum stick...you can play drums, or stab your sister in the eye.
honestly, that's the entire issue right there.
end of story.
those who say that twitter subverts the spirituality of churches are only right if some moron is using twitter as a way to be cool or try and grab a few headlines.
we're cool.
we've grabbed a few headlines because of twitter.
but we never used twitter for that reason.
the controversy surrounding twitter is much like the controversy surrounding drums in church, contemporary worship choruses, and video screens for use in worship.
there are those early adopters who will use just about anything as an expression of worship. strangely enough, some of us early adopters are actually quite critical regarding the ways we use these things...instead of our oft-parodied caricature which depicts us as rabid, slathering webheads with a fetish for technolust and video games.
on the other end of the spectrum, we have a group of folks who seem content to worship in a time machine. these folks often bring up great arguments against thoughtless uses of new tech/experiences. but, truthfully, i've yet to read one single article or blog post that levels any more significant criticism that the w:impotent thought that we "must be doing this to be cool."
to me, it all sounds like:
drums? hell, no!
screens? blasphemy!
twitter? same to you!
as for john piper, who so recently blogged that he'd never tweet during sex with his wife, or tweet praying with the dying, etc...
i appreciate what he's getting at, but he's really overstating for effect. and, i don't agree 100% with his commentary on the natural fragility of spiritual connecting and exultation.
furthermore, there are many things i'd do in church that i wouldn't do while in bed with my wife.
for example:
i don't sing songs in bed
or give money
or read a bulletin
or invite thousands of my closest friends to share in the experience with me
but i do all of those things every week in church.
it feels odd to say it, but - John Piper - church and sex are different.
anyway, on a more personal note, i suppose it's worth mentioning that i was once very opposed to twittering. i don't have the time for new social media (i never check my facebook, and i hardly blog), and some of the fruit i was seeing from twitter in the lives of my friends early on made me suspicious.
but my friend John Voelz challenged me: do we really believe that the gospel should be lived, and shared, and demonstrated in the cultural containers of our day...or not?
i signed up for twitter...reluctantly, almost clandestinely...and had my mind changed through the experience.
as a pastor of a larger church i don't have the time for 1-on-1 counseling like i used to.
i can't afford to take everyone out for coffee each week like i did as a college pastor.
i certainly can't seem to squeeze in time to discover everybody's personality quirks and idiosyncrasies - those things that make them beautiful.
but - once i began the T - i found that i got 90% of what i used to get through some basic, mostly banal, 140 character exchanges.
don't get me wrong: twitter isn't the shiznit.
it's just a convenient little tool
that almost 1/3 of our church uses every single day
to stay in touch
to laugh
to pray
to encourage
and to be together.
so of course we'd use it in church. our people were using it in church before we ever had a "tweet during church" event. it has been a natural extension of who we are and how we live in this liquid world.
but church isn't about twitter. the tweets are just a way to probe, locate, ask questions, reflect, play, and make the worship gatherings more interactive...more participatory.
after all, we want our people to engage what's happening
especially when we're teaching the scriptures
and - like it or not - people don't do that well when they're told to just sit still and listen to the old white man behind the pulpit.
(sheesh!)
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
prayer in fusion
God -
you brought Jesus back from the dead,
just as you have brought me back to life.
You brought the cosmos,
you brought the world,
and only you have the power to bring anything ever new.
"You are the only beginning we know."
Begin again in us - start here, start now, start with mercy.
Make the world new again, make the church new again, make us new and innocent.
start - before it is too late...
Amen.
you brought Jesus back from the dead,
just as you have brought me back to life.
You brought the cosmos,
you brought the world,
and only you have the power to bring anything ever new.
"You are the only beginning we know."
Begin again in us - start here, start now, start with mercy.
Make the world new again, make the church new again, make us new and innocent.
start - before it is too late...
Amen.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
10 innovations in preaching
it's always struck me as odd how innovative we are in liturgy and/or music, but how staid we are in our oratory. to be fair, more than almost anything else, good oratory rises and falls on the connection of the speaker to the people - whether through charisma, persuasion, rhetoric, or illustration - but, there are a few things that most of us could try but don't.
here's a few that've worked out pretty well for me at the winds, back in my old college group, and/or in some of the other venues in which i've taught over the years. i don't use them all the time, but we i them all from time-to-time and it keeps things fresh.
#1 - team teach a sermon...sometimes people get deaf to one voice, so mixing it up is a good option. i like an A-B-A structure with the more familiar voice on either end, to ground the teaching for the people.
#2 - teach through sermon series based on a metaphor. this is a distinctly different approach than a series based off a tv show or a biblical book. find a metaphor that truthfully teaches a biblical concept and then unpack that metaphor each week. one the first week explain the metaphor, and every subsequent week go deeper and deeper into the biblical theology that makes the metaphor sound. by referring back to the metaphor, the "top-shelf" theology becomes really understandable for normal folks (instead of just bible geeks). a good example of this was our recent series at the winds called sin monkey (sinmonkey.info) where we said that everytime you sin it's like you've brought a pet monkey home to your house, and that monkey destroys all your stuff...so everyone needs to kill the monkey and fix their furniture (i.e. stop sinning and make restitution) in order to make things right.
#3 - create a teaching atlas...take some time and prepare all your sermons in manuscript form in advance of the series you'll be teaching on. add some original artwork (use deviantart.com or istockphoto.com if you're not "artsy"), some q&a (for any satellites/bible studies), and maybe some illustrations (to connect with right brained folk). it's a beastly amount of work, but a VERY useful tool.
#4 - create a cobblestone translation of a biblical book while teaching through that book...a cobblestone is a mashup of as many different english translations as possible. so 1.1 might be from NIV, while 1.2 is from ESV or NKJV etc. to make it all thread together well, do a little homework (with the NIV commentary series, for starters, if not something more substantial) and pick key terms and phrases that you translate personally and use everytime that phrase/word is used in the text. this is a fantastic way to dive deeply into the text, become familiar with the emphasis of all the english translations quickly, and have a little fun. i encourage our people to do one of their own, too, though maybe with only 3-4 versions (whereas i usually use 15+). note: please do not try and pass off your cobblestone as "just as good" as another translation...there are a lot of interpretational rules we're bending here, but provided we treat this as a devotional tool those rules really aren't too problematic.
#5 - use twitter more creatively than just for q&a...questions are cool, but other - cooler - versions of twitter use include an official "note-taker" or "quote-taker" that everyone call follow and copy, a silent reading guide that takes everyone through a guided meditation following the sermon, personal reflections from you (the teacher) after the sermon describing how you feel and what you sense God saying to you right then (in service, perhaps while the song following the teaching is still playing), etc. of course, all of this could be done privately (via iphones and pcs) or publicly (through screens and projections or tvs, etc), but i suggest that the broadcast medium be given equal consideration as the interactivity. my friend Jvo has some good ideas on twitter here.
#6 - break up the teaching into 5-8min segments....after all, not everyone connects well with oratory, so break it up into a few chunks and allow folks to digest morsels instead of meals. also, consider doing each part of the talk from a different location, with different lighting, and utilizing a different teaching technique - exegesis, metaphor, illustration, anecdote, etc.
#7 - have a scribe...this has become a more popular idea lately, but often it's too business-like. a scribe is someone who will artistically interpret what you're saying through illustrating relationships + keywords + main ideas + fantastic imaginings and implications. on a so-so day this looks like arrows and globes and cartoons, but in the bad-assest of worlds this includes new art, charcoal, live photoshop or livesync (as of yet to be tried at the winds), and something new and intriguing being brought into the world.
#8 - use a dancing partner/VJ...have someone mounted on motion dive or arkaos VJ finding and displaying google images, captured vids, etc and posting them while you teach. this can be distracting to thinkers but engaging for artists, so i'd suggest limiting the presentation to half or 1/3 of your screens and giving a kind of warning. the best experiences i've had with this have involved a sizeable chunk of preparation and someone i trust at the helm.
#9 - instead of using powerpoint (yuk) for displaying your notes/slides, have someone make a microsite in flash (get resources here) and use a little new cleverness in your design.
#10 - use a soundtrack...Jvo did a cool talk once where he went out and mined the soundtracks of famous films and timed their entry into his sermon. it was a cool way to connect people emotionally with the message and it was a lot of fun (and a lot of work)
#11 - use a video for which you are the narrator...we've all used video as an illustration, but here i'm referring to a film that's made specifically for you to talk over. get some stock film from istockvideo.com or barnafilms.com and create a landscape over which you can speak a mood or tone. this is a great backdrop for scripture readings, especially the prophetic pieces from the major prophets.
#12 - preach through an original story you've written/told...like cs lewis or jrr tolkien, use fiction to illustrate a point that may be too difficult to understand literally, or too tired to understand in a fresh way. for example, the same-old explanations for how the trinity works only get you so far...so why not write a story about a dance or something to bring new life into eternal theology?
#13 - bring in a guest for an interview via phone or skype...sometimes a friendly voice via cell phone can help illustrate something cool that you want to unpack in a new way. call a friend (whom you've prepped for this) and ask them your questions over the phone. let everyone listen in to their response.
#14 - preach through a lens...like wesley's reason: tradition: scripture: experience, or the four medieval lenses of literal: metaphorical: analogical: anagogical as a way to unpack the many layers of meaning in robust pieces of the word
#15 - use fictional stories (that you have NOT written) with which people are unfamiliar...i've used terry brooks' "sword of shannara," tokien's "children of hurin," and george rr martin's "song of ice and fire" as cool ways to re-contextualize the movement of the spirit in and around us. be careful not to canonize fiction, but be intentional about showing people godsigns in the culture when they show up. lots of preachers do this with popular tv shows, but i always feel like that's cheap and dirty...expose people to something unfamiliar and provocative, and see what happens when you do this wisely.
#16 - argue with historical personages...imagine a conversation with plato or aristotle or confucius concerning your teaching. study them and hypothesize their responses to christ - this is a good way to engage the thinkers.
...ok - that was more than 10 - but so many other things in life overpromise and underdeliver, i thought i'd add a few bonuses in case you thought some examples sucked.
cheers
D
here's a few that've worked out pretty well for me at the winds, back in my old college group, and/or in some of the other venues in which i've taught over the years. i don't use them all the time, but we i them all from time-to-time and it keeps things fresh.
#1 - team teach a sermon...sometimes people get deaf to one voice, so mixing it up is a good option. i like an A-B-A structure with the more familiar voice on either end, to ground the teaching for the people.
#2 - teach through sermon series based on a metaphor. this is a distinctly different approach than a series based off a tv show or a biblical book. find a metaphor that truthfully teaches a biblical concept and then unpack that metaphor each week. one the first week explain the metaphor, and every subsequent week go deeper and deeper into the biblical theology that makes the metaphor sound. by referring back to the metaphor, the "top-shelf" theology becomes really understandable for normal folks (instead of just bible geeks). a good example of this was our recent series at the winds called sin monkey (sinmonkey.info) where we said that everytime you sin it's like you've brought a pet monkey home to your house, and that monkey destroys all your stuff...so everyone needs to kill the monkey and fix their furniture (i.e. stop sinning and make restitution) in order to make things right.
#3 - create a teaching atlas...take some time and prepare all your sermons in manuscript form in advance of the series you'll be teaching on. add some original artwork (use deviantart.com or istockphoto.com if you're not "artsy"), some q&a (for any satellites/bible studies), and maybe some illustrations (to connect with right brained folk). it's a beastly amount of work, but a VERY useful tool.
#4 - create a cobblestone translation of a biblical book while teaching through that book...a cobblestone is a mashup of as many different english translations as possible. so 1.1 might be from NIV, while 1.2 is from ESV or NKJV etc. to make it all thread together well, do a little homework (with the NIV commentary series, for starters, if not something more substantial) and pick key terms and phrases that you translate personally and use everytime that phrase/word is used in the text. this is a fantastic way to dive deeply into the text, become familiar with the emphasis of all the english translations quickly, and have a little fun. i encourage our people to do one of their own, too, though maybe with only 3-4 versions (whereas i usually use 15+). note: please do not try and pass off your cobblestone as "just as good" as another translation...there are a lot of interpretational rules we're bending here, but provided we treat this as a devotional tool those rules really aren't too problematic.
#5 - use twitter more creatively than just for q&a...questions are cool, but other - cooler - versions of twitter use include an official "note-taker" or "quote-taker" that everyone call follow and copy, a silent reading guide that takes everyone through a guided meditation following the sermon, personal reflections from you (the teacher) after the sermon describing how you feel and what you sense God saying to you right then (in service, perhaps while the song following the teaching is still playing), etc. of course, all of this could be done privately (via iphones and pcs) or publicly (through screens and projections or tvs, etc), but i suggest that the broadcast medium be given equal consideration as the interactivity. my friend Jvo has some good ideas on twitter here.
#6 - break up the teaching into 5-8min segments....after all, not everyone connects well with oratory, so break it up into a few chunks and allow folks to digest morsels instead of meals. also, consider doing each part of the talk from a different location, with different lighting, and utilizing a different teaching technique - exegesis, metaphor, illustration, anecdote, etc.
#7 - have a scribe...this has become a more popular idea lately, but often it's too business-like. a scribe is someone who will artistically interpret what you're saying through illustrating relationships + keywords + main ideas + fantastic imaginings and implications. on a so-so day this looks like arrows and globes and cartoons, but in the bad-assest of worlds this includes new art, charcoal, live photoshop or livesync (as of yet to be tried at the winds), and something new and intriguing being brought into the world.
#8 - use a dancing partner/VJ...have someone mounted on motion dive or arkaos VJ finding and displaying google images, captured vids, etc and posting them while you teach. this can be distracting to thinkers but engaging for artists, so i'd suggest limiting the presentation to half or 1/3 of your screens and giving a kind of warning. the best experiences i've had with this have involved a sizeable chunk of preparation and someone i trust at the helm.
#9 - instead of using powerpoint (yuk) for displaying your notes/slides, have someone make a microsite in flash (get resources here) and use a little new cleverness in your design.
#10 - use a soundtrack...Jvo did a cool talk once where he went out and mined the soundtracks of famous films and timed their entry into his sermon. it was a cool way to connect people emotionally with the message and it was a lot of fun (and a lot of work)
#11 - use a video for which you are the narrator...we've all used video as an illustration, but here i'm referring to a film that's made specifically for you to talk over. get some stock film from istockvideo.com or barnafilms.com and create a landscape over which you can speak a mood or tone. this is a great backdrop for scripture readings, especially the prophetic pieces from the major prophets.
#12 - preach through an original story you've written/told...like cs lewis or jrr tolkien, use fiction to illustrate a point that may be too difficult to understand literally, or too tired to understand in a fresh way. for example, the same-old explanations for how the trinity works only get you so far...so why not write a story about a dance or something to bring new life into eternal theology?
#13 - bring in a guest for an interview via phone or skype...sometimes a friendly voice via cell phone can help illustrate something cool that you want to unpack in a new way. call a friend (whom you've prepped for this) and ask them your questions over the phone. let everyone listen in to their response.
#14 - preach through a lens...like wesley's reason: tradition: scripture: experience, or the four medieval lenses of literal: metaphorical: analogical: anagogical as a way to unpack the many layers of meaning in robust pieces of the word
#15 - use fictional stories (that you have NOT written) with which people are unfamiliar...i've used terry brooks' "sword of shannara," tokien's "children of hurin," and george rr martin's "song of ice and fire" as cool ways to re-contextualize the movement of the spirit in and around us. be careful not to canonize fiction, but be intentional about showing people godsigns in the culture when they show up. lots of preachers do this with popular tv shows, but i always feel like that's cheap and dirty...expose people to something unfamiliar and provocative, and see what happens when you do this wisely.
#16 - argue with historical personages...imagine a conversation with plato or aristotle or confucius concerning your teaching. study them and hypothesize their responses to christ - this is a good way to engage the thinkers.
...ok - that was more than 10 - but so many other things in life overpromise and underdeliver, i thought i'd add a few bonuses in case you thought some examples sucked.
cheers
D
Thursday, April 16, 2009
innovation inspires complaint
the creation of a new life system often requires a specialized "container" because established systems are naturally hostile to the "other," the "outsider," the "alien." the normal chemistry of an adult human body would be toxic to an embryo, just as the mainstream culture of an organization is often toxic to the innovators it spawns. and when the organizational immune system kicks in, innovators often find themselves ignored, ostracized, or worse.
- taken from one of the classics, "presence" by peter senge
- taken from one of the classics, "presence" by peter senge
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
a response to a question about the historicity of jesus
i received a comment on the blog about the historicity of jesus, so i thought i'd give a brief answer (taken from the "dying for a fix" teaching atlas).
Jesus Christ lived and died in Palestine during the rule of Tiberius Caesar in a time/space known to historians as Second Temple Judaism.
Contrary to what some folks have thought, the narratives of Jesus’ life and death – called the Gospels – were not clever works of hopeful, religious nonsense. When the Gospel stories were being written down for the first time they were read and proofed by people who’d been alive while Jesus taught and was executed. The Gospels endured because they were accurate and proven to be of good account quickly after the death of Jesus. In fact, compared with any similar document out of antiquity, the amount of proof that we have for the historicity of the Gospels (and, indeed, for all of the New Testament) is simply staggering.
The historicity of Jesus and the events surrounding the time of his life has been well established by early Roman Greek and Jewish sources. The New Testament mentions such historical facts as rulers, nations, people groups, political events, and the existence of Jesus. In addition, non-Christian historical sources such as Josephus confirm the accuracy of the Biblical text.
(click on chart to expand in window)
Because we have so many manuscripts and because those manuscripts are so close to the original writings in the New Testament, we can have great confidence in the historicity and authenticity of the biblical text.
hope that helps!
Jesus Christ lived and died in Palestine during the rule of Tiberius Caesar in a time/space known to historians as Second Temple Judaism.
The accounts of Jesus life are not mythological, though they are mystical;
they are not fabricated, though they have been woven into Time
and have reworked history around them;
they are not disputed by any serious historical or archaeological scholar
in the world today.
they are not fabricated, though they have been woven into Time
and have reworked history around them;
they are not disputed by any serious historical or archaeological scholar
in the world today.
Contrary to what some folks have thought, the narratives of Jesus’ life and death – called the Gospels – were not clever works of hopeful, religious nonsense. When the Gospel stories were being written down for the first time they were read and proofed by people who’d been alive while Jesus taught and was executed. The Gospels endured because they were accurate and proven to be of good account quickly after the death of Jesus. In fact, compared with any similar document out of antiquity, the amount of proof that we have for the historicity of the Gospels (and, indeed, for all of the New Testament) is simply staggering.
The historicity of Jesus and the events surrounding the time of his life has been well established by early Roman Greek and Jewish sources. The New Testament mentions such historical facts as rulers, nations, people groups, political events, and the existence of Jesus. In addition, non-Christian historical sources such as Josephus confirm the accuracy of the Biblical text.
(click on chart to expand in window)
Because we have so many manuscripts and because those manuscripts are so close to the original writings in the New Testament, we can have great confidence in the historicity and authenticity of the biblical text.
hope that helps!
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