donde esta el Pablo?

i've just read another book that portrays jesus as an uber-ghandi with lovechild tendencies and a hatred for the church

to be honest, i'm getting pretty bored of this rhetoric

while it's true that jesus was a great moral teacher
it's also true that he was and is more than simply a teacher or an example
so, if all we do is parrot his words and model his human example
we're missing out on the dimensionality of what it means to follow jesus

jesus, after all, wasn't just human
he made divine claims
he rose from the dead
he ascended into heaven
he manifested himself into a glorified body
he sits now at the right hand of the father

so, when we reduce jesus to just the living + poor carpenter without a dad, unable to find a suitable wife, and content to freeload off of his adherents then we're not getting the true, biblical, depiction of jesus

instead - we're getting a non-offensive, pussy cat jesus who only died prematurely because he o.d.ed on the catnip of selflessness

also,

while it is true that jesus fought the religious establishment
and while it is true that jesus would be - at the very least! - critical of 21st C north american christianity
it's also true that the new testament encourages, directs, supports, and commands the followers of jesus to be together
and to love one another
and to serve one another
within the church

being critical of the church is different than being critical of institutionalized relgion

especially since a healthy understanding of the church is that it's the aggregate of christ's followers here on the earth

so, sometimes when people get on the 'abandon-ship--church-is-dumb--we've-screwed-up-the-gospel' bandwagon, and offer instead that we should just share our kfc with some homeless people and snuggle with our kids more
i feel like scripture is being totally neglected

which is tough

because i do actually think that the church is broken and needs attention
and i do actually think we ought to share our kfc with homeless folks
and - if it were at all possible - i'd certainly be snuggling my kids more

but there is great danger in reducing the gospel to simply acts of kindness, even though acts of kindness may be the most respected and visible manifestation of god's love on the earth

ironically, my frustration here may seem at odds with the talk i gave yesterday in fusion where i spoke openly about the need for christ-followers to be involved in justice & advocacy

but i hold both to be true

we must be involved in loving our world

but we must not think that loving and following jesus is only about what we do to be nice or to love our neighbors

at some point, scripture requires that we wrestle with the transcendence of god - not just his immanence; at some point, he has to be lord - not just friend; at some point the immortality of our souls has to factor into our understanding of spirituality - not just the pleasant and gentle emotions of doing good while we're here.

and this tension makes me feel like a ping pong ball

i hate knowing that some of my friends will consider me a heretic for allowing that the gospel is about more than just sin, that our behavior matters more than our doctrine, and that our propositional affronts to the culture are often obtuse

and i hate knowing that some of my other friends will consider me a fundamentalist for maintaining that the gospel is about the lordship of jesus christ, second person of the trinity, who alone grants life and access to god

but

my study of the scriptures forces me to believe that exactly such ping ponging is required

jesus shows us how to live
and paul teaches us what that meant and how it looks
once we throw in james, john, peter, a few others, and the old testament
we're looking at a fuller picture of christian spirtuality

i think a fairly significant problem with the current jesus-as-hippie monograph is that it ignores the full witness of scripture and chooses only to see jesus through the lens of the red letters and some old testament prophetic discources

if, however, we welcome paul and the other nt writers back into the conversation [along with the davidic monarthy, the partriarchs, eden, babel, exile, etc...] then we get a better idea of who god has always been to his people

this is the task of the theologian

to figure out what god is up to
and what he's been after all along

authors and teachers that advocate greater missional activity in our world are 100% right on that issue

but let's not confuse the desperate need for the church to be engaged in our world with bad theology about other bits

juniper trees

most people who know me well have no idea that i'm prone to melancholy

i prefer it that way

the dozen [or so] people who know me best know that i am melancholy by nature, prone to introspection and very susceptible to small spaces of depression.

it has been a significant part of my spiritual discovery to manage and limit my melancholy and the accompanying dark-thoughts/moods

however, i find i am at my weakest after a big thing has come and gone. when i was a music pastor and we'd write/produce/publish/perform our own musicals, i'd always spiral downwards after the final performance. the productions were always met with highly positive remarks, but they'd never quite live up to my ridiculous expectations and i'd always find myself evaluating crazy things like 'the meaning of life' or 'who am i supposed to become' when everyone else had gone home.

those moments have sometimes been called juniper tree moments.

when elijah was running from the evil queen jezibel, an angelic presence shaded him beneath a juniper tree.

collapsing from exhaustion, elijah prayed "i've had enough, lord; take my life."

now, the cool part about the juniper tree experience is not the exhaustion-inspired plea for eternal rest. the cool part about the experience is that the angel of the lord gave elijah simple instructions for how to continue, telling him to

get up
eat

and then again

get up
eat

adding, "for the journey is too great for you."

from here elijah went to mt. horeb where god met him in a whisper.

when we're exhausted and - yet, somehow - god isn't finished with us
he comes to us with simple things: getting out of bed, getting something to eat
and then he leads us further down the long and winding road
down the road and up another mountain, pursued by the wicked

and once we've journeyed
-having not given up, having not stayed in bed, having not succumbed to depression-

he begins to whisper

i think i'm living for those whispers.

to be fair, they're not promised [as such]. elijah's experience is not proscriptive to life in the 21st century; but, also to be fair, elijah's experience does set some kind of precedent. it gives hope. it shows us what god is like. it demonstrates the reward for good and faithful service - a reward here and now before any kind of final, eschatalogical one.

so, yeah...

i need one whisper to keep believing.

so many cooks, so little broth

on monday night we launched our causemology portal at westwinds, which is a spiritual formation initiative for our church.

we're trying to get everyone more comprehensively engaged with the movement of the spirit of god in their regular lives

in their souls
in their relationships
in their church
and in their world

it was a huge success!
over 100 additional people than what we first anticipated showed up
and the energy in the room was easy to feel and be invigorated by

we're praying desperately that god would teach us his priorities, his path, his affections, and overflow us with his love - and we're aware that he doesn't "need" something like causemology to help make that happen; but, beginning causemology is a very convenient way for us to more finely tune our hearing to him.

it comes around the same time as a massive redux of our kids ministry at westwinds
wherein lori tate and jvo have worked tremendously hard with their teams to create experiential learning environments where our kids can see/touch/play with the stories from scripture. it's a fantastic model that authenticates differing learning styles and multiple intelligences, while still prioritizing the story of god and the centrality of prayer.

very cool.

however...

while we're working hard doing our damnest to effectively disciple our church and our children [and be discipled ourselves], there are those who feel qualified to offer critique about our initiatives from their armchairs [particularly christian leaders and pastors not employed by ww].

i find this incredibly difficult.

i have devoted my short life to helping people more meaningfully engage jesus christ.
i want everyone - myself most especially - to know him better.

having experienced passionate moments of overwhelming grace and love
i can think of nothing better than endeavoring to honor god with my efforts and my ambitions, my thinking and speaking and blogging

and i try very hard not to publicly criticize people of other ilks, methodologies, denominations, or persuasions [case in point: have you, reader, even seen anything on guerillahost that names/questions/attacks any other ministry or leader by name...ever? have you ever seen or heard me speak about my reservations about what anyone else is doing in ministry - either locally or internationally?]

i feel like it is very easy to criticize
it is very easy to undercut
to expose
to poke holes

because everything everyone ever does is flawed
and imperfect
and cannot possibly bear the scrutiny of detached observation from a critical spirit

but it seems that my godly ambitions are sometimes the target of the same sins i furiously try to avoid committing

and sometimes i am criticized
from a distance
by those who feel that - since every approach is flawed - we ought not to bother trying; or, we ought not to waste our time trying to be more biblically honest or reflective of real life


so, in response [and partly in therapy]
i say 4 things:

1. just because something is imperfect doesn't mean it isn't helpful

2. just because i'm imperfect doesn't mean i'm impervious to backhanded comments or subversive actions

3. just because causemology and/or kids redux doesn't look like something another church would try or something another pastor would create doesn't mean they aren't exactly what westwinds needs right now [because they are EXACTLY what we need - we need to understand how we are formed spiritually and to be missionally engaged in our world; and we need to pay attention to the spiritual lives of our children]

4. just because i'm writing this post, doesn't mean i'm bitter or angry - it just means that, sometimes, you want to let those whose ignorance harms you know about it

pray hard

play often

live well

staff sustainability

i worry about my staff these days.

there is still plenty of laughter and enthusiasm around the office, but everyone is working so hard and so long to make things happen that i can't help but feel like burn out is either already occurring or just around the corner.

they truly are a tremendous bunch of people - having lived through remarkable job-related stress, the upheavals of change, and a welcome turn to relational health, our staff have now been beset by significant financial woes and the effects those limitations have on their ministry areas and their personal lives.

sadly, the money has been so limited we had to let 5 of our staff members go.
this is something i've not previously spoken of, or blogged about.
to be honest, it's simply been too painful - they are my friends, have been my companions and my trusted peers. when we had to let them go i sobbed in every private moment.

i've never felt so horrible or so angry with god.

cognitively, i understand that his goodness has nothing to do with the impoverished circumstances of their departure; but it was hard to let them go after they had stuck by jvo, randy, and myself for the past two years - through an insane amount of mudslinging, half-truths, suspicion, and doubt [if those adjectives need explaining, be grateful to god. our recent history at westwinds has left something to be desired].

the church, now, is healthy in many ways - and is getting healthier by the second!

but the cost is so high - how can we possibly continue to do so much with so little? we're under-staffed by at least 2 full timers, and if there was any justice in the universe for vocational ministers we'd also have a few additional admin staff.

still, our struggle remains financial.

those who are new to faith or new to westwinds simply have not yet cultivated a sacrifical ethic of giving. this is to be expected, but given that almost half of our congregation fall into this category it makes us aware that the financial future will be one hard-fought and heavily labored.

here's a funny story, though - despite our financial dips we've remained faithful in giving 10% of our church budget to missions. some of that support goes to missionaries. well, i got a nasty note from a child of one of those missionaries complaining about how much we talk about money at westwinds [which, as a rule, is less than 3min per week].

isn't that bitter?

this kid complains that i talk 3min about money after years of giving money to his/her family.

that really shouldn't bother me - in fact, that it does bother me if proof that my concerns for the sustainability of my staff output should also be echoed for myself.

i am wonderfully proud of everyone who works at westwinds - they are champions all.
randy for courageously fighting a public battle with cancer
lori for tackling the single, most invested ministry initiative of her career
ben for leading our students on 2 life-changing missions in less than two years
angie for her incredible efficiency and warm devotion to jvo and i
norma for her wisdom, faithfulness, and goodness[she's a pro at overlooking my flaws]
and jvo - for being the best damn companion any hellfighter could ever wish for

cheers, folks - our reality hasn't caught up with us yet
but when it does, let's hope that our passion for jesus overwhelms our exhaustion

d.

rule the web

i've just finished mark frauenfelder's book "rule the web", which is a great read for hints and tips and tricks on maximizing your life with the net.

it was doubly-cool for me because i am a huge believer in the potential of cyber-spiritual and online interactions. i don't think the web has yet come into it's own, and i certainly don't think that the spiritual dimension of the web has been clearly articulated or participated in to even a 1/10 of it's potential.

in fact, the new westwinds' test site for the launch of our ann arbor campus is a beginner's foray into the realm of cyber-spirituality [www.echomediatest.com/WWAA], as is the open-source e-learning causemology site that we've been toodling [www.causemology.com].

echo media and jason archer have really been working hard to help us realize a vision here, but - to be perfectly honest - all these projects due is whet my appetite for more.

with the right budget we could create the right kinds of experiences.
prayground was great, but it's never scratched the itch for me
write here and now is pretty cool, but it barely gets past the surface

we've got to dig deeper and try harder to create unique moments of transcendence
- which we can! -

i think sony's "flow" is perhaps a good paradigm for what a prayer site might feel like
i think the personal fitness video games are good examples of how a site on spiritual disciplines might work well
an rpg could easily be tweaked into a virtual pilgrimmage

but enough with the christian facebook clones, already

you know?

let's go past the venues of online dating and romance
past the - other alternative - venues of christian violence or halo clones
and try to create something peculiar
something new
wherein the user feels pulled beyond reality
without being virtually compelled to act against their real morality



i could go on,
but it would only get weirder

my story with the web 2.0 is definately not finished

sick

i found my first notes on causemology dated feb.4 2007.

that's a long time to have been incubating something, a long time to be sharing ideas with jvo and randy, our staff and elders, a long time to be making corrections and field-testing, listening and trying to be open to what god may want to do through our church and through our obedience.

and now - less than a week before the launch - i get sick

since moving to michigan i get sick a lot,
roughly every 6-8 weeks

i even went to see my doctor and asked her if there was something wrong with me
she told me i had little kids and shook too many hands
so i began using "magic hand washer" [aka disinfectant] and that has staved off the sickness for almost 3 months

but obviously it's not been effective enough

i hate being sick
i hate the pity that people extend when you're sick
or their worry that you're somehow more sick than simply being common-house-cold sick
i hate it when my father-in-law refers to me as being "sickly"
or when randy tells me repeatedly that i get sick "all the time"
i hate it when someone suggests that i'm sick because my faith is weak
or because i don't trust in the healing power of god

i'm not even sure if i hate being sick as much as i hate all the bologne that goes along with being sick; i mean, if i got sick and instead of all this junk it was accompanied by plenty of time to read and watch movies then maybe i'd see it as a blessing.

but instead, the best thing that being sick has to offer is the slightly pharmaceutically-enhanced blog post

sigh.

ok - back to work

i genuinely believe in what i'm doing at westwinds. i am a fierce and proud defender of the freedoms and expression of christian spirituality that we are living and playing in here. i'm pretty geeked about the opportunities that god has afforded my family and i am excited to see how they all play out.

even if it means i've got to blow my nose every 32 seconds and fall asleep in the middle of the day.

How can a good God justify sending people to Hell?

Well, perhaps part of the conundrum here lies in the way we phrase that question. I say this because I’m not sure God “sends” anyone to Hell, so much as we choose NOT to accept His invitation to Heaven.
Let me put it this way:

if you invited me to live in your House, but I decline the invitation because I don’t want to be with you, or to live under your “roof and rules”, you can hardly be said to have send me away into the darkness outside; however, once I realize how special your house is, I may regret my decision [i.e. U2 is the house band, Rachael Ray makes all the meals, the Cirque deSoleil performs in between new Wachowski brothers films and demonstrations of the latest gadets from Sharper Image, etc…]. This regret [as well as the fact that there is gigantic fire outside, I’m being gang-raped by bikers, and am in constant threat of vampires hunting me for all eternity] is what makes up the Horrors of Hell.

I know I could have lived with you, but I chose not to and that knowledge torments me. In addition, the Devil and all his fallen angels have been sent to the same spot, and I am now forced to share space with them [hence the vampires and the bikers].

So, it’s not that God sends people to Hell, it’s that they choose to reject Him and once they realize their mistake they’ve entered Hell [both figuratively and, ultimately, literally].

C.S. Lewis hypothesized in The Great Divorce that many people would choose to continue living in Hell even if given many, many additional opportunities to come and live in Heaven because they could not bear the thought of giving up their selfish autonomy; after all, as Dante’s Devil said, “it is better to rule in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”

kids et al.

no one can ever tell you how much you'll love your children

mine are away right now, with carmel, visiting family and their absence makes me sick. my house feels too big, with too many rooms and not enough of a mess in the kitchen. every morning i wake up in fits and starts, scared because i don't hear the enthusiasm of my son's heavy footfalls accelerating into the master bedroom. every night i dream of the spastic glee of my daughter when i pull her out of her crib, her beaver's front teeth smiling at me like goalposts.

the house feels too cold with them gone, and when i laugh while looking at their pictures i imagine carmel laughing with me and it makes me quickly want to jump on a plane and surprise them.

[i forsee a terrible amount of money being spent spoiling my family when they return]

loving my kids this much makes me realize how loved i was [and am] by my parents. it forces me to relive every moment where i thought they were embarrased of me, or would have been better off without a third son. i realize now that nothing - nothing! - could ever separate my love from my children.

in this way i feel like god

though, it stuns me to think that what i'm feeling is only a splinter's worth of his great affection for us.

at any rate - i miss you 3

love you!

color quiz

i took this strange test at colorquiz.com and was amazed at the poignancy of the results. i wouldn't totally agree with everything the quiz states about me, but i'd honestly give it a 9/10 for accuracy.

scary...


here are my results:

YOUR CURRENT SCENARIO: Willing and adaptable. Only at peace when closely attached to a person, group, or organization on a which reliance can be placed.

YOUR SOURCE OF STRESS: Wishes to be independent, unhampered, and free from any limitation or restriction, other than those which he imposes of himself or by his own choice and decision.

YOUR RESTRAINED CHARACTERISTICS: Willing to participate and to allow himself to become involved, but tries to fend off conflict and disturbance in order to reduce tension. Feels that he cannot do much about his existing problems and difficulties and that he must make the best of things as they are. Able to achieve satisfaction from sexual activity.

YOUR DESIRED OBJECTIVE: Takes easily and quickly to anything which provides stimulation. Preoccupied with things of an intensely exciting nature, whether erotically stimulating or otherwise. Wants to be regarded as an exciting and interesting personality with an altogether charming and impressive influence on others. Uses tactics cleverly so as to avoid endangering his chances of success or undermined others' confidence in himself.

YOUR ACTUAL PROBLEM: Seeks to avoid criticism and to prevent restriction of his freedom to act, and to decide for himself by the exercise of great personal charm in his dealings with others.



...looks like i picked the right week to stop seeing a therapist :)

greatest website ever

if you're like me and you've got little kids who love weird little toys, then readymech is the place for you

download printable, free, pdf's of how to make your own monsters

genious

more on causemology: who does god want us to be?

Who does God want us to be?

The underlying premise of Causemology is that we all need to be spiritually formed. This “formation” refers to the ways in which our engagement with God becomes more meaningful, our lifestyle and behaviors better reflecting His goodness.

Some people refer to this as ‘discipleship’, by which we mean that we are becoming better followers of Jesus Christ. Some people refer to this as developing ‘maturity’, by which we mean that we are becoming more ‘grown up’ in our spiritual selves.

Regardless of our terminology, we recognize that this development is a never-ending process – a journey towards God – that we will always be involved in. There are innumerable ways in which we are formed.

People experience god in many different ways. There are those who connect most with a careful study of the scriptures; there are those who connect most through musical worship [or even non-musical forms of worship]; there are those who connect through nature, through spiritual disciplines, through art, through movement, and through a host of other kinds of expression and interaction with their creator. [For a look at nine significant pathways of spiritual connection, see the section on “Sacred Pathways” in Know Yourself: a handbook on spiritual identity.]

Unfortunately, many of us really have no idea how we connect best with god. So we all need people to teach us how.

Humbling ourselves before God and asking for His help doesn’t exactly come easily for most of us. We’ve gotten quite comfortable being independent and doing things on our own. So, even that part is going to take a bit of adjustment.

That’s okay – you’ve got lots of opportunity to move into this new way of living with Causemology. The important thing is to start someplace. God is at work in you every day, so He’ll start dropping you hints throughout the week – invitations into his presence – and your job is to simply pay attention.

from, "this sunrise of wonder" by michael mayne

here's a book i highly recommend for any contemplative soul

from p. 70


"god [blesses] everything he creates, making all creation the sign of his presence. if spirituality means the way we grow into the kind of being we are intended to be, then the starting point is not a striving after another world, but a deepening awareness of the true nature of this world and our place in it."


excellent.

a few thoughts on work & fear

in any work environment, much of the interplay between employees and employers is defined - sadly - by certain, specific, fears

now, in my mind, the real tragedies of fear are the interpersonal consequences

for example,
the most destructive thing about fear in a work environment is that it makes you treat people differently

fear disrupts relationships

you can't speak openly or honestly with someone else if you're afraid, and neither can they speak openly and honestly with you if they sense that your fear has erected barriers of tension, irrationality, and bad memories of previous employers

in addition,
fear has a nasty habit of awkwardly reprioritizing the wrong things
when we're afraid, we look for isolation - so that no one can "get us" or "get" our ideas
when we're afraid, we take solace in negative speech - so that others will know our opinion on the fear-makers
when we're afraid, we dismiss the open hearts and ready minds of willing helpers as the actions of credit-takers and dream-thieves

when, in fact, none of this may be true

in the church world - by which i mean the world of vocational [pastoral] ministry - we are often afraid of some very mundane things

words, for example, can be terribly frightening to pastors
words like "program", "prayer", "evangelism", "free-form", "criticism", "organic", "teamwork" and a variety of others from all over a variety of word-spectrums

we're afraid of these words because we think they're used as a means of control, by either complaining congregants or overbearing bosses

which, incidently, is another thing we're afraid of - authority
pastors are wired to be lone-rangers
and, to be fair, most pastors are one-man shows
so, particularly in this age of anti-denominational-involvement and local church autonomy, we shy away from authority

but i often miss authority
not because i want more rules
but because i require other, wiser, voices in my life to help me facilitate the work of god on earth

still, we're afraid of authority because we think authority means a lack of autonomy
and it does - and i think the most recent season of my life provides rich material for proving that lesser autonomy would be healthier for more pastors. we need accountability. we need counsel. we need boundaries and guidelines to which we submit as godly men and women under the authority of the body.

we don't need to be controlled, but we do need to be accountable.

which is another thing we're afraid of - accountability
we're afraid of being held accountable [even by godly, intelligent, well-meaning people] because we're afraid of failure
we're in a prime vocation for success/failure to drive our worth and our self-image
so, the idea that our ministries may not "work" is a horribly vulnerable thought
because we feel like it means "we" don't work

but this is not true

furthermore, we've got to be willing to be appraised on our efforts
to discard those things that are ineffective, or too costly, or produce nothing of new testament spirituality
and we often need other people to help us evaluate those things in those ways
because we're too afraid of failure to do it honestly ourselves

but, we're also afraid of working with other people closely
we're afraid of teamwork because we might not always have the best answers or the best solutions
and not being able to be the best - even though we don't want to admit it - seriously undercuts the shadow beliefs most pastors secretly hold
by which i mean that we all think we ought to know better
because we all feel like everyone else expects us to be wiser than politicians, more creative than hollywood producers, and more entrepreneurial than businessmen
and we're afraid they'll find out we're really not that qualified in those kinds of ways

lastly,
i think we're afraid of ideas
we're afraid of ideas that are bigger than us - because we can't make them real or understand their significance and we think we should
we're afraid of ideas that are newer than our new ideas - because we work so hard to stay fresh, it feels like an indictment that we're not the "fresh-est"
we're afraid of ideas that prove our hypotheses wrong - because we thought our 'bright ideas' would be the 'next big thing' and they so rarely - if ever - are

i think my job these days is to try and aleviate the fears of those around me
while speaking honestly with carmel or dad or jvo about my own fears

i try to put others' fears to rest
and i try and master my own

so,
to try and advance this conversation a little further
let me put some fears to bed

we are cultivating a staff at westwinds that works around the following kinds of things:

innovation - we want everyone to dream big, to think outside the boxes they've just built [by virtue of thinking outside their previous boxes], and to feel like they're empowered to try things no one else has the freedom or the resources to try

credibility - we also want everyone to hold their ideas loosely; so, if the idea is tried, tested, given a reasonable amount of tweaking and, at the end, feels like it's not effective...then we want to go back to the drawing board and start fresh - without judgement, without complaint, without accusation

freedom - we want everyone to take the space they need to be creative, to get things done, to honor family, to honor god, and to become the best possible version of themselves; but, to paraphrase what ben parker has said so well "with great freedom, comes great responsibility"

worth - we want everyone to receive credit for their own work, value for their own contributions, and to recognize the part they play on a much larger team. we want them to know that we couldn't do anything [like what we're currently doing] without them, and that their brains, their fantasies, and their noble ambitions are welcomed and authenticated here.


i don't often write on leadership stuff on this blog
typically, leadership stuff doesn't trouble me in ways that blogging might address therapeutically
but our staff is going through a lot these days
and i wanted to be public about my love and my ambitions for them

more on causemology: what does god want us to do?

What does God want us to do?

Any cursory reading of the scriptures seems replete with instructions about what we’re supposed to do as followers of Jesus Christ. We’re supposed to be truthful in prayer, ethical in our conduct towards others, compassionate towards the disenfranchised, giving to the poor, generous with those in need, merciful to the outcast, sincere in our worship, studious in our treatment of the scriptures, lavish with our sacrifices, loose with the charity of our money, and exclusivity committed to the service of Christ and his church [and this is all just for starters].

To be fair, Jesus himself makes it clear that we are not bound by a laundry list of rules and regulations; but, he also makes it clear that anyone who is sincere in their affections for him and his kingdom will allow these kinds of activities, habits, and practices to flow out of them because of their newfound spirit of joy.

We ought to be doing what Jesus wants, but that doesn’t mean we have to do them all at the same time, or do them all of the time without ever thinking of Jesus’ other commands like rest, watch, and wait [sometimes adding more “stuff” to our lives is hardly god-honoring]. As such, we must become reacquainted with the notion of seasons.

Our lives move in rhythms. Some are busier than others and some are more relaxed; some are seasons of incredible study, and some are seasons of tireless play; some are seasons of spiritual fervor and discipline, some are seasons of Sabbath and the love of our families. There is no command in the scriptures to be busy in all things at all times, thereby neglecting the primary relationships that god himself has placed into our care and of which he requires our utmost commitment.

Causemology is designed to honor these seasons, creating two-month-long waves of spiritual intersection. By intentionally limiting our initial commitments to just two months, we can protect ourselves against burn out and sidestep the danger of reducing these spiritual actions into rote and habit.

So, simply, what does God want?

He wants us to be active in the world around us, not merely “hearers..but doers of the Word” [cf. James 1.22-25]. We ought to be doing…

Something for our soul
We ought to focus specifically on our individual spiritual development.

Something for our relationships
We ought to focus specifically on our relationships and God’s participation in those relationships.

Something for our church
Participation in a local church is fundamental tenet of New Testament teaching and we ignore that participation to our own peril.

Something for our world
We ought to be intimately involved in helping the world become a better place through justice, compassion, and spiritual transformation.

This list is, of course, incomplete, flawed, and unsatisfying…but it is a beginning for how we ought to live.
It is a starting point.

Test

This is a test

DOXA: sola scriptura, QUICK FACTS

this is a supplemental note to week 1 of our DOXA series at westwinds.

in an effort to help people study the bible for themselves, i've included some quick resources and suggestions both in my sermon and here online.

Q. what is the bible?

A. the bible is our ultimate authority in all manner of belief and behavior.


Q. how do we use the bible?

A. we use it for teaching, rebuking, correcting, & training in righteousness


Q. where do i start studying the bible?

A. in the old testament, i suggest you begin with 1 & 2 samuel which tells the story of king david; then i suggest you move on to isaiah, which is largely concerned with prophecies regarding jesus christ. in the new testament, i suggest you begin with the gospel of john - which many people find to be the easiest gospel to understand and digest - and then move on to paul's letters - first philippians, colossians and/or ephesians, then on to romans which is the hallmark of christian theology.


Q. what do i need to get started?

A. everyone needs a good bible. i suggest an NIV study bible for this kind of approach. in addition, you'll want to grab hold of a lexicon [i.e. a greek/hebrew/aramaic to english dictionary], a concordance [which lists all of the instances of each particular word in the bible], and a bible/theological dictionary [which helps you quickly remember all of the obscure words you'll learn in the course of your study]


Q. how do i go a little deeper in my studies?

A. the low-fi approach is through books and tapes. i recommend getting the following books to start you off:
how to read the bible for all its worth, by gordon fee and douglas stuart
how to read the bible book-by-book, by gordon fee and douglas stuart
the pocket dictionary of theological terms, by stan grenz
_____ [book of the bible, i.e. "John"] for everyone, by tom wright [a series of books]
manners and customs of bible times, by ralph gower

the hi-fi approach is through the web and through podcasts
if your a podcaster, i suggest the following two fellows in addition to the westwinds podcast
1. mark driscoll, at mars hill church in seattle
2. rob bell, at mars hill bible church in grand rapids
both are excellent bible teachers, focusing almost exlcusively on the bible and not on a bunch of other issues. mark is pretty agressive, rob is pretty emo.

in addition,
you'll want to download e-sword, found at e-sword.net, and download all of the various versions, dictionaries, commentaries, and lexical works you can. most of these are free, some require an additional fee.
you'll also want to add the following websites to your favorite links
jewishencyclopedia.com
catholicencyclopedia.com
biblegateway.com
crosswalk.com

this, of course, is merely a beginner's list at studying the bible
but i think it's pretty accessible for most people and provides a great starting point for those who newly believe, or are newly interested

happy hunting!

what is "causemology?"

Causemology is our term for the new modular ecclesiology at Westwinds [aka, it’s the way our church is going to function Monday-Saturday].

every two months we’ll be leading our church through a wave of spiritual experiences
we'll begin by getting together on a monday night
where we'll coach and guide you
through a series of spiritual competencies and habits, disicplines and activities
that will help you better experience god in your daily life
and train you to involve yourself in four key areas of christian spirituality
something for your soul [a.k.a. a spiritual disicpline]
something for your relationships [a.k.a. keeping you in community]
something for your church [a.k.a. serving at westwinds]
something for your world [a.k.a. outreach and service]

you’ll then meet with a personal coach to decide which of the many options
you’ll choose to participate in for this two-month "wave"

you’ll select one option in each of the four categories
knowing that you’re only commiting to these habits & pactices for the current wave

you’ll talk with your coach about the choices you’ve made
throughout the course of each wave
and what their impact is in your life
and then return to the next gathering at the beginning of the next wave
to select a new set of habits & pactices for the following two months

over the course of a year
you will have involved youself in a cross-section of brand new ways of exploring and investigating what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ in our ever-changing world

not bad, eh?

we think it's gonna be a cool way to integrate the various expressions of christian spirituality with the fluctuations and rhythms of 21st century life.

basically - it'll be a great way to experience a bunch of cool new stuff
without getting so busy you forget what your friends look like.

why do churches get smaller?

for many reasons...

moral failure of a senior leader
poor management
cultural irrelevance
spiritual irrelevance
etc...

however,
one *distinct reason [often overlooked]
is that churches need to feel connected to themselves
and the people in them often don't

see,
any living system must be in complete connection with itself
every part must be connected to the whole
and - by proxy - to all the other parts
in a life-giving
information-exchanging
mutually-and-environmentally-sustaining
kind of way

and if those parts are not connected
the overall system will shrink down to a size wherein they can be connected

this means that if the structure that allows all of the cells in a fern to remain connected
breaks down
then the fern will die off/get smaller
until it is whole again from within

of course,
i know very little about cellular biology [and even less about ferns]
but i do know enough to understand the implications here for churches

if our people
are not connected meaningfully to one another
then our churches will continue to shrink down to a size
where they can feel connected

so
a church of 1000 disconnected people
will naturally shrink down into a church of 300 or 100 or 50
connected people
by virtue of the hidden intent of those same people
who inadvertantly distance themselves from newcomers
or withdraw from mere strangers at church
because they cannot cope with any more fragile or meaningless
connections

if attendance and involvement are in any way
factors that we care about at all
then we must look to the health of our churches
and the connections of our people

people need other people to help them grow spiritually
to speak intelligently and with wisdom into their lives
to rebuke them when they're truant
to correct them when they're wrong
to encourage them when they're down
to cheer them on when they're winning

but these things don't ever happen in a weekend worship experience
they only happen in some other venue of connectedness

to be fair
the venue itself doesn't matter
whether that's old-school-sunday-school, cell groups, informal connections, or something else

all that matters is that people stay connected
for their individual health
for the health of the community
for the health of the church

and
intuitively all of our people know this
but we forget it
to our own peril

stay connected.

math?

the more i study theology
the more i realize it's like math

which sucks
because i'm terrible at math
but love theology

and yet
i find myself growing quickly in my theological understanding
while - at the same time - recognizing how little "math" one genuinely needs to be a legitimate lover and follower of jesus christ

so...
i've come to think of it like this

theology is like math
in that there are certain definate & true answers to certain questions
and that there are applications for theology/math well outside of the strict discipline of theology/math
and that theology/math affects our daily lives without most of us even noticing it
and - perhaps most 'sexily' - that theology/math contain much room for hypothesis, rumination, and speculation about meaning and significance in real life stuff

in order for someone to truly to be considered a lover and follower of jesus
i believe they ought to work hard at understanding basic math
they ought to know how to add and subtract
they ought to ascribe to something basic [like the nicene creed, even with its many theological pinholes that so much of evangelicalism is fond of fighting over]

for me
and for many other pastors
however
we need to know more than addition and subtraction
we need to know - at least - calculus and algebra
so as to see the deeper levels of meaning and the use of numbers/texts

what concerns me is how many "famous" pastors seem only to have grasped
what looks like multiplication or, far too often, division

to be fair
we truly cannot judge their worth from a distance
and - even if we could - it would unethical for us to do so
without, at least, acknowledging their noble purpose and being in some manner of relationship [either professional or personal] with them

but
if we're honest
we do need to be clear that more is required of pastor/teachers than simply addition/subtraction, multiplication/division

for myself
i've humorously recognized that my particular bent is towards
applied theology/math

applied mathematics is the field of study concerned with stuff that makes a visible difference in real life
with the analysis of the world around us
and positive suggestions for how it could be improved
or better utilized and/or enjoyed

theologically speaking
i love to think through the hyper-complicated parts of faith [i.e. the real and complex numbers, number theory, etc...], but am only concerned with them insofar as they help us all connect more meaningfully with jesus and with the world around us.

perhaps this is a useful way to understand my contribution to the world around me

words that drive me nuts: organic

"organic" is a term oft applied in the word of business/leadership/management

it was originally coined in this way to refer to the autopoeitic emergence [i.e. self-creation] of healthy systems that reproduce other, similar healthy systems; also, it was a reference to denote how unhealthy systems will naturally become healthy if permitted to self-diagnose and sustain [though, that may include removal of certain agents/persons contributing to the unhealth of the overall system].

these days,
however,
the term is often reduced to the functional opting out of managerial responsibility
wherein leaders don't lead or provide direction
because it's not "organic"

in churches
there is a great fascination with organic terminology
in part because of the obvious crossovers with jesus' teaching on spirituality

however,
the term seems most applied in churches as a way to kind of sex-up whatever program
the church is promoting these days

all of thus bugs me

and,
since blogs really do tend to be about stuff that bugs bloggers,
i thought i'd offer something a little more helpful in the way of understanding what it truly means to be organic

1. "organics" is truly about people
...and people don't "run" like machines. people cannot be controlled and be simultaneously passionate/creative. leadership in churches is organic because the people in our churches will do whatever they want, regardless of whether or not we want them to do it.

says mag wheately:
"it is important to recognize that people never behave like machines. when given directions, we insist on putting our own unique spin on them. when told to follow orders, we resist in obvious or subtle ways. when told to accept someone else's solution or to institute a program created elsewhere, we deny that it has sufficient value."

2. managing living systems/cultivating health/sustaining growth
... the only way forwards, then, is to look to the system-as-a-whole. we can influence the system towards health/growth/sustainability, which isn't "in-organic" just a recognition that we - as leaders - are also part of the larger system and, as such, our role in the system may be to influence the overall web towards things that are more true, more beautiful, and/or more good.

3. paying attention to what's naturally happening around you
...the best way to do this - at least, it seems this way in 12+ years of ministry - is to notice the good things around you and publicly laud and authenticate them, providing rationale/teaching for why, exactly, they are so beautiful/true/good; and, to notice the absence of critical things in the system and try and introduce them through the manifestation of growing concern about their absence in the other people involved [i.e. make everyone aware of how screwy it is that "compassion" - for example - is noticeably absent in our churches, and then help them realize what "compassion" might look like in their locale].

this is just a start

but i just can't simply be bothered by misuse of "organic"
when
in actual fact
this kind of orientation towards faith/leadership/systems truly is one of the greatest perspectival gifts of the 21st c.

jesus and paul

i've come into a few discussions lately about people who seem eager to dismiss the apostle paul from conversations about christianity.

their claim is that paul somehow misrepresented jesus, thereby hijacking christianity and making it into something other than what jesus himself intended.

in their minds, the theology of jesus [and the kingdom] is very different from the theology of paul [and christianity]; and, if we're true christ-followers, we'll focus far, far less on paul than on jesus.

because,
after all,
paul only quotes jesus once in all his letters
and only references the gospel stories 4-5 times

however,
i think there are a couple of giant leaps made in this kind of thinking

dangerous leaps

first of all,
the great worth of jesus christ is not primarily his teaching
...it's HIMself

don't get me wrong - jesus' teachings are crucial
but he was more than just a good moral teacher

he is the resurrected
glorified
son-of-man
prophecied about
who superceded the messianic expectations of his friends and followers
and manifested divinity in a skin suit

he is god

when we take away these important
little details
we're left with only a better ghandi

and a better ghandi in no way addresses the real metaphysical issue
of our separation from our creator

ghandi can't atone for sin

and we do need atonement
even though that's not a popular understanding these days

the second big flaw i see in this silly line of reasoning
is the arrogant assumption that a 21st century american
somehow beter understands the local context of a 1st century palestinian jew
than the apostle paul
who was, himself, a 1st century palestinian jew

i mean
how did we get so full of ourselves
that we think we would be able to magically understand something about jewish messianic expectation that paul would not have understood
or sacrificial atonement
or the nature of god
or the promise to abraham

furthermore,
if paul had totally screwed up the reality of christ
peter
james
john
and all of the other disciples whom paul knew personally
would have set him straight

instead
it was repeatedly paul who set the disciples straight
because they kept making the gospel smaller and smaller
focusing on just jews
focusing on just the legality of righteousness

now,
i do understand that the gospels were all written after paul's missionary journeys were completed
and i do understand that john mark, who wrote the gospel of mark [aka peter's account of jesus' life] traveled with him
so there are some who say that maybe the gospels were a correction of paul's misunderstandings

but this is an argument from silence

...and a silly one at that

so,
how do we best understand jesus?

is it by his teaching alone?

or is it also by the work of the new testament theologians who made his identity and significance clear?

right.
i know.

i shouldn't even have asked the question.

rocks and stones cry out

i once heard darlene zschech talk about luke 19.40, wherein jesus tells some passersby that if his disciples keep quiet about his claim to divine authority that the 'rocks and stones will cry out'

meaning that the rocks will begin to praise god
if we don't

now,
i've heard that interpretation before
but darlene gave it a cool twist

she cited songs like audioslave's "show me how to live"
and dishwalla's "counting blue cars"

and films like "the matrix"
or "the fountain"

as examples of rocks and stones crying out

it was just a cool spin
on how revelatory the art of the unfound
can truly be

thinking, speaking, writing

it seems like this is all i do.

think

speak

write

and, somedays, it's a little trippy to get my head around

i mean
for the first 10 years of ministry
i understood my role as much more of a pastor/shepherd
i did a lot of mentoring
i worked hard to develop strong relationships with my "people" [whom i never thought of - and still don't - as "people", they're just my friends]

and i understood pastoring primarily in terms of relationships

to be honest,
i still understand it that way
but my life just isn't that way anymore

these days

it's just more thinking

it's just more speaking

it's just more writing

i think ad naseum
i read everything i can get my hands on
i've done 15 magazine subscriptions
i read a complete non-fiction book every 3-4 days
i read a lot of fiction
and all of my reading just barely keeps me fueled enough
barely keeps up my ammunition
to keep thinking

thinking about how the church needs to etymologize for the present world
not to mention the future world [which is it's own category of thought]

thinking about how to better communicate the full gospel to our world
via live experiences and via the web/podcasts/utube, etc...

thinking about key doctrines
particularly soteriology, hamartiology, pneumatatology
and how they jive in this new world in new ways
ways we may never have fully appreciated before

thinking about dissipative ecclesial structures
and modular methods for leading a growing church

not to mention
personal development thoughts
family thoughts [my fav]
god thoughts
or backyard dreams/plans


and after i've begun thinking
i find myself with a shortage of time before i have to speak

i mean
a lot of my life is about talking

and not just preaching/teaching

i mean,
i end up talking for most of my work days
it's good talk
it's fun/work talk

but some days
i actually pray

"god,
please don't make me talk anymore today"

please.


and then i've got to synthesize
my thoughts
with my teachings
with my reflections
and my conversations
with the collaborations and contributions of friends and critics
so that i can write it all down for someone to make sense of later.

[and, no - in my mind, blogging doesn't count as writing. so, please don't imagine me sitting in my office logged on to blogspot for any more than a furious 5 min. at a time]

currently,
in addition to our teaching atlases

we're spinning out
what will be
about a 200 page "booklet"
on the core doctrines of the christian faith

and a 100 page "booklet"
on a new modular ecclesiology
that will completely reengineer the way our church works

and i'm very excited about completing both writing assignments

so i can play on our new trampoline
with my fantastic son
my beautiful 1yr. daughter
and the everlasting love of my life
who i duper into marrying me 9 years ago

ok...time to go.

the sins of pentecost & the sins of evangelicalism: an overview

ironically, there is no written definition for sin in the bible.

there are lexical studies on the greek [hamartia] and hebrew [chata', chet, etc...] words
and there are descriptions about what the effects of sin are
but there's no space in scripture that says "sin means ______"

so i've been looking for such a definition that is true to scripture, and makes sense for real life

and i've grown fond of defining sin as 'the breaking of relationship.'

it works spiritually because our sin separates us from god - and that, really, is why sin is "bad"...because we're no longer connected to our creator

it works practically because our sins against one another separate us from one another. when we lie or cheat or say hurtful things, they alienate us and dehumanize both the victim and the oppressor

but one of the reasons i've tried to better understand sin
is because of the things we do to one another
that the bible never truly addresses
but that feel so wrong

so, so wrong

and i'm not sure what else to call these things except 'sin'

and,
after a little hamartiological digging
i'm fairly convinced that that is exactly what they are

let me give you an example

i grew up pentecostal
and, i've come to understand, pentecostals as a larger cross-section of christendom
have their own sin-set

[to be fair, i am addressing the worst of pentecost here, not the norm]

their sin-set includes things like

- spiritual manipulation, wherein someone uses language that makes it sound like the holy spirit wants someone else to obey the person speaking. for example, this may be use in awful instances, like "the lord told me that you are quenching the holy spirit" or, "god wants you to know that he is unhappy with your waywardness and your ear-piercings." to be fair, some of the "spiritual perspective" may - at times - even be valid [certainly, if we claim to believe the new testament, we must also claim to believe that god still speaks to people today], so my sin-label doesn't apply to the practice so much as it applies to the manipulative intent behind the exercise of that practice.

- misuse of scripture, by which i refer to the often hilarious instances of proof-texting for which pentecostals are lampooned. for example, citing 1 cor.6.19-20 [re: your body is the temple of the holy spirit] as "proof" against anything and everything they don't want you to do because it's not proper. so, that text then is somehow supposed to mean that we shouldn't drink anything, wear certain kinds of clothing, get any kind of tattoo or body piercing, and refrain from all extreme sports because our bodies are "temples." now, again, to be fair - there may be real wisdom in cautioning people against some of these practices - but that text is not about any of those things and we should be very wary of mis-applying it. that text is about sexual immorality. in fact, in most versions of the bible vv.12-20 are even labelled "sexual immorality", so i get puzzled as to why we think they're about something else.


- sense of superiority, this refers to the idea that pentecostals commonly hold wherein they see themselves as special, above and beyond other christians, because they experience the power of the holy spirit in a richness and a depth that no one else seems to either [a] want, or [b] care about.

to be totally transparent, they may even be right - but the sin is the fact that they allow that special quality to separate them from the rest of christendom, and - at worst - they begin to associate anyone without such an "experience of god" to the camp[s] of either backslider, heretic, or catholic.


* * * * * * *


now,
since moving to michigan
i've become aware of a funny difference between pentecostals and the rest of evangelicalism

a difference i was certainly not prepared for

see,
the sins of evangelicalism
are different than the sins of pentecost

pentecostals break relationship
because of their deep convictions about experiencing the holy spirit

evangelicals break relationship
because of their deep convictions about the truth of scripture

and i,
naively,
thought their sins would be the same

i thought i'd still be fighting the mis-application of proof texts

i thought i'd still be slowly, patiently, trying to reason someone out of calling fire and judgement upon the worship leader for not flowing with the spirit

i was not prepared at all for the following sins of evangelicalism

- apologetical pugilism, wherein i mean that evangelicals love to fight about every single point of doctrine [either major or minor, central or peripheral] and are willing to hate one another over varying interpretations of scripture. to be honest, i'm still reeling from this with disbelief - in pentecostal circles, this is the very reason why we never associated with outsider/broader evangelicalism. every week, i teach the bible to a degree of depth that i rarely hear advocated. i study hard, check all my sources, re-check the underlying theological premises of my statements and assertions; and, if i'm ever wrong, i try and publicly make it right. but the amount of smarmy, overconfident, critical [not to mention WRONG] feedback that i get about this-or-that minor doctrinal issue still baffles me. i'm just never sure how to react - i mean, how do you respond to the 18 year old bible college know-it-all who has only ever read one theologian and that guy happened to be his dad/professor? i always find myself torn between polite dismissal of their ignorance, and the carnal desire to unleash the full bore of my mental acumen and theological study on someone who could never withstand the heat of my self-righteousness.

it's the reason i disabled posts on my blog

i just couldn't continue to hear from people whose theology was incomplete at best
but who felt the freedom to question mine with an air of disdain and superiority

it was making me too angry

and i'm in ministry to connect people with jesus christ
not to defend myself against know-it-alls and dissenters


- practical gnosticism is the other big evangelical sin i've come up against since moving to michigan. we're really quick to make divisions between the life of the mind and the life of the spirit, between right thinking and right relationship - and we always seem to prioritize the brain at the expense of the heart. where apologetical pugilism deals with the aggression of "rightness", my concern with practical gnosticism lies with the dismissal of the interior life. we just don't pay near enough attention to what god is speaking to us [sometimes it seems like no one even believes he is], or to becoming more malleable to his will in each moment. of all the evils i've looked at, this one makes me the most sad.


* * * * * *

this post - i realize - is pretty overbearing. in fact, i probably should have put some kind of disclaimer on the top warning everyone of my grouchiness.

but let me close with a couple of short things

1. i wrestle with my own sin, so when i point out the broad-stroke sins of two movements i'm not trying to get even or be vindictive. i'm trying to help others who've struggled with the effects of these sins get some perspective on what to watch out for.

2. westwinds, where i presently serve, has been a wonderful mix of the BEST of both pentecost and evangelicalism. i have always been pleasantly surprised by the low amount of garbage i've personally had to deal with here, even with the messy circumstances that existed upon my arrival.

3. i'm really trying to train myself to be aware of my own propensity for judgement...and i'll probably spend a lot of time repenting/reflecting for being so abrupt on this post. maybe, though, it will also serve as a trigger for me to ask myself whether or not i display the perils of either movement in greater relief than their merits.

too much?

too early?

well, long-windedness certainly counts as a member of the teaching pastor sin-set, so i guess that's to be expected :)

causemology

i've been working for months now on something new for westwinds

to be fair, i've not been working alone on this
jvo and randy have been heavily involved
as have most of our staff [and elders], in one form or another

and so have many of my friends from other countries, places, and backgrounds

as well as the numerous authors [like capra, myers, foster, weston, senge, merton] and thinkers [sweet, dad, richardson], and artists [warhol, yorke, and anyone who's ever been featured in communication arts]

which is all very cool

because - here at the middle-end - i feel like we truly have something significant to offer our church.

coming this september, we'll be unloading a truly open-source, self-emerging, missional ecclesiology that will allow each person who participates to learn/grow/exhcange/experience/think/believe/love/care/know god & our world in new ways.

and i'm really looking forwards to that

it may be the one great contribution we're able to offer our church

fauxthenticity

i recently read an article in fast company magazine about how big brands are fighting hard to "stay true" their ethos/identity.

it seems that companies like starbucks and hagen daas are finding it increasingly difficult to be unique in a world so full of imitators.

the article, of course, reminds me of all the funny conversations we have in the emerging church about authenticity - and i thought i might take a few lines here to delineate the dangers of that kind of orientation

one may be that we're not truly honest about things that are wrong - using, instead, authenticity as a kind of insulation against recognizing our sinfulness. for example, many times i've heard people say brutally horrible things to one another under the guise of "just being authentic and/or transparent", as if our truthfulness to ourselves should somehow excuse our willful harm to another.

another danger of the way we conceptualize authenticity is the way in which we seem to decry everything that anyone else has ever done [as per our frequent criticisms of mega churches and/or successful churches]. we become so caught up in our own brand [which, if we're honest, is still mostly defined by our reactions against the brand of our precedents] that anything that looks/smells like success must somehow be "inauthentic" because we didn't think/dream of it first. this, i think is a very hard truth for us to reconcile with because so many of us have been hurt by the ecclesial machine of american christianity; but, we must repent of this alienation and recognize that much we identify as "authentic" is truly only pride and resentment.

my final notice of our use of authenticity, though, bears the title of this post - 'fauxthenticity' - wherein we participate in the worst kind of fakery by claiming to be authentic with one another but still not really caring about each other. in this scenario, we observe people who are highly familiarized with the concept of "authenticity" and have - ironically - become desensitized to it; so, we use the concept as a frame and a justification for our words and deeds, but have actually stopped engaging the spirit of god and the people around us. we've become fake.

in fact, much of what we [in the emerging/progressional/experimental/lab church] do feels increasingly fake.

we have our own pet publishers
our own conferences
our own blogosphere

and there feels like less and less room for outside influence to penetrate our world

perhaps we've spent so much time defending ourselves against fundamentalists and self-relfecting apologists that we've stopped innovating?

perhaps, in our sincere efforts to be more than just a brand, we've lost the essence of what made us special?

there seems little enough published about interdisciplinary mediums
less about innovations in ministry perspectives/forums/models/rubrics [and, yes, i know model can often be counterfeit measures of spiritual effectiveness, but models are neither wholly good nor wholly bad and criticizing a system/structure/model for being flawed in-and-of-itself ultimately produces the great dual fruits of uselessness and superiority]

to all this i suggest we add to our working vocabulary words like truth and rightness [with all french literary deconstructionist tendencies invoked, nonetheless] and, more importantly, that we add verve, enthusiasm, creative capital, and passion back into our repetoire.

we've become staid academics and rote defenders of an orthopraxy we're no longer reinventing.

sorry for the rant

i'm just being authentic :)

the pop of king

stephen king is anathema to most christians.

but he's still a brilliant writer and a wiseman.

take, for example, his weekly column 'the pop of king' attached to the hindquarters of entertainment weekly. there, king regularly exposes the b.s. of celebreality and asks us to evaluate our own inconsistencies and flights of useless fantasy.

almost
(dare i say it?)
like a prophet.

take the following article, for example, about celeb rehab. herein, king rips on the facade of public penitance perpetuating rock star spectacle - a theme, i might add, that ought to be more prevalent in our churches.


NO NO EASY ROAD, by Stephen King


After reading an article in The New York Times about the various cushy rehabilitation facilities where celebrities dry out, I got curious about just how many ''celebs'' we were talking about. So I cued up my current favorite song, which just happens to be Amy Winehouse's ''Rehab,'' and made a list. The song's only 3:33, but I had a pretty good roster before it was done: Eddie Van Halen, Jesse Metcalfe, Marc Jacobs, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Keith Urban, Mel Gibson, Robbie Williams, Courtney Love, Kate Moss, and Colin Farrell. I don't doubt there are many more.

The Times article suggests that, in spite of Ms. Winehouse's defensiveness (which those in recovery bluntly call ''denial''), rehab has become a kind of hood ornament for famous folks who like to get high. And why not? The rooms are private, tasteful, and in some places include beds with 600-thread-count sheets. There are pools and gyms, the grounds are peaceful, you can get naturally high with a massage. Of course the price is also high, but you can afford it if you're a movie star. And golly, you might even get a movie out of the experience, or at least a book (Rummies, for instance, by the late Peter Benchley).

So what's to No No No about?

Judging by my experience, quite a lot —but of course, I went through rehab 20 years ago, before rehab was cool. At that time, recovering alkies called finding oneself in such a situation being in a jackpot. The word, I assure you, was used ironically.

And no star-time for me. The place where they took away my keys, sharp objects, and credit cards upon admission wasn't Promises or even the Betty Ford Center, but a place called Brookside, in scenic Nashua, New Hampshire (not). In her song, Ms. Winehouse says she doesn't want to be jugged for 70 days. Maybe they keep 'em that long in California, but at Brookside it was 28. I don't know what the thread count of the sheets was, but some of them had some mighty interesting stains on them.

My first roommate was cool. The second, a suspended transport driver with a maniacal grin, tried to smuggle in roughly 50 airline nips by burying them at the bottom of his suitcase. Staff removed them over his loud protestations that someone had confiscated his personal property. The guy across the hall had spent the previous five years designing weapons guidance systems while ingesting coke eight-balls (so relax, you Enemies of Freedom). He agreed to go for treatment when his girlfriend discovered that the smell of freebase was not mildew on the bathroom shower curtain, as he had been assuring her.

Our bathrooms were done in that classic style known as ''Early YMCA.'' The showerheads didn't move; the temperature setting was Eternal Lukewarm. There was a horrid tiny smoking room that filled up with roughly 50 people during free periods. This was at the height of the summer, and the air conditioner wheezed a gruesome sludge comprising water, nicotine, and exhausted coolant. It probably could have been freebased, and I'm sure some of the inmates thought of it.

Rehab didn't sober me up. The well-known recovery program founded by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith managed that trick (at least for today). Yet it was Brookside that introduced me to the program, and it was Brookside where I first heard a counselor who looked like a Hell's Angel say, ''I got tired of being in jackpots, that's all. I finally just got tired.''

Plain or fancy, I doubt if Mel and Britney and Lindsay really wanted to go to rehab, in spite of the new cachet; I imagine they went yelling, No No No. The demands of loved ones that you change your whole way of living is never comfortable to contemplate. Six-hundred-thread-count sheets probably aren't much consolation.

The great thing about Brookside, with its lukewarm showers and nicotine-poisoned air conditioner, was that it took away all the props I had depended on to keep killing myself. It also took away the idea that because I'd been born with a little talent and parlayed it into a fair amount of cash, I was different somehow.

Most sobering up — almost any recovering-drunk-on-the-street will tell you this — starts with a merciless ego-stripping. You've got to find out you're no better than anyone else drowning in booze or lost in a cocaine snowstorm. I remember, near the end of my stay, that a gas station manager who'd ''graduated'' came back to speak. I asked him the question that gnawed at me: How do you fill the hours knowing that when 5 o'clock comes, you still can't get high?

''Steve,'' he said, ''I don't even think about it. I'm so busy there aren't enough hours in the day now.''

And about those amenities. New York Times reporter Ruth La Ferla, in her piece on substance-abuse resorts, quotes Chris Prentiss (the cofounder of Passages Malibu) as saying, ''After all, Britney Spears isn't going to stay in a shack.'' Maybe she should. Maybe it would be better. After all, look at Anna Nicole Smith. She's staying in a box these days.

the eyes of morgoth

i've just begun reading "the children of hurin", which is a tolkien narrative reprinted by christopher tolkien and taken from his father's notes.

the book takes place about 6500yrs. before the lord of the rings
and tells of a family cursed by morgoth

[morgoth was sauron's master
whom many believe to be the figure of lucifer in the supra-allegory
into which lotr is placed]

in the introduction, we're told that morgoth curses hurin
by giving him his eyes

meaning,
hurin only ever sees the world through the eyes of morgoth

we might do well to think of this as a curse that abides today

if we're honest
many of us continue to suffer under such a curse
seeing our entire reality
through the eyes of corruption and malice

the great struggle of christian spirituality may, in fact, be to break this curse

to swap out the eyes of morgoth

for the light of christ

i realize that relating christianity to the writings of jrr tolkien is almost passe
but i also feel like the curse of seeing a distorted reality
is perhaps the most prevalent curse
within the church
within the world

and within our hearts


may we all have an experience like paul on the road to tarsus
and see the world truly

the clumsiness of fictional christianity

i loved the da vinci code
i loved holy bood, holy grail
i even liked the less-well-written 'last templar'

but let's be honest

these portrayals of christians are demeaningly one-dimensional

authors just don't seem to "get" christians
they write us as being scared of the truth, fascinated by folklore, and deprived of all rationale thought in favor of ancient mysticism

for example,
in the last templar
a character makes mention that there is "proof" of the humanity [aka non-deity] of jesus christ

he goes on to state the obvious, that this is threatening to christians, and makes the assumption that we are threatened by the "truth"
and that we prefer the "experience" or "comfort of faith" over "the facts"

but this is where they get it all wrong

see, there is a difference between truth and meaning

things that are true can be proven to be true
but true things are not always meaningful

likewise,
meaningful things don't always have to be factual
[love, for instance, isn't a fact - it's a kind of experience]

the problem with dan brown and raymond khoum is that they think we count our experiences are proof of the veracity of christ's claims

which we don't

in fact,
we believe the teachings of the bible
because there is ample archaeological evidence and scholarly research to prove the worth of the text

despite all of the hullabaloo about the council of nicea and all the pseudopegraphic gospels [gospel of thomas, of mary, etc...]
the scholarly evidence overwhelming supports that the books in our bible are
- written by their claimant authors
- authoritative in local churches [beginning in 1st C palestine]
- consistent with history and biblical theology
- credible [in the case of the gospels] first-hand and/or eye-witness accounts of the life and times of jesus of nazareth
- withstand the rigors of textual criticism [i.e. there's proof that the books we have in our bible are actually the original books written by the original authors] far more so than those of plato, aristotle, or caesar's gaelic wars

in short,
there is real proof that the bible is real [aka a credible, historical document]

that's why we believe it to be true

furthermore,
there are always those who say that jesus never claimed to be the son of god
that this is a distortion of the church or pauline theology

but this is also complete bollocks
there could be no greater student of the hebrew scriptures
or one more fully commensorate with the followers of jesus
than paul

so, when paul traces the claims/miracles of jesus through the hebrew scriptures
[and, then, so does the anonymous author of hebrews]
we get a pretty solid evidentiary set
that,
yes,
jesus did make claims to be god
equal with god
and his teaching supports the idea of a trinitarian god ruling all of the kosmos

so,
again,
we believe in jesus' teachings as they are commonly understood by orthodox theologians

because they're true

but just because they're true doesn't make them meaningful

again - this is where i think our fictional authors get it screwed up
"they" think that "we" overlook the proof/factuality of [1] the biblical text & [2] the claims of jesus because we're scared that the proof doesn't lie on our side

i.e. if we really looked at the evidence, we'd be forced to give up on our superstitions

but this just isn't the case

the scholarly proof
by-and-large
supports the biblical story

we can thank our host of apologeticists for unmistakeably showing us that [lee strobel, josh mcdowell, et. al.]

and i think the reason those authors [brown, khoum, etc...] make that mistake is that they hear us talk about our experiences so passionately and assume that that's all there is to faith

but this is not so

the proof makes it true

but the experiences make it real

real.

the experiences make it real in a way that proof never can

the experiences make it meaningful
which is why we talk about our experiences of god
rather than the proof

particularly in a postmodern world
we've come to take "truth" for granted
and have become disullisioned with the meaninglessness of some "true" things

so, what we've come to want more and more and more
are things that are meaningful

christian spirituality is ferociously meaningful
the experience of god is life-changing
living guided by the holy spirit into a lifestyle of divine cooperation is a fundamentally altering path

which is why we talk about it so much

but let's not be confused

just because we talk about our "experiences" more than our "proof"
doesn't mean there is no proof

it just means that proof isn't enough to affect us

for that, we need something more

we need something real

we need to experience god for ourselves

a straight line with a crooked stick?

i've always thought that god can use "a crooked stick" to draw a "straight line"

and i still do

i mean,
every teacher/preacher/apostle/etc... is flawed [aka "crooked"] to some extent

so,
by virtue of the fact that we learn/are expanded as a result of any of my/their teachings/inspiration, obviously god is using them to point us to him

yes?

but i'm really wrestling lately with the difference between "flawed" and "crooked"

i mean,
i consider myself flawed
because i'm not perfect
i'm still prone to losing my temper
acting like an idiot
speaking out of frustration
not watching my tongue
etc...

but
in no way would i consider myself "crooked"

by which i mean
deliberately
openly
rebellious
to the lifestyle advocated in the new testament scriptures

however
i see plenty of examples of people who seem to disregard these lifestyle commands
and also seem to prosper in ministry

which is hard for me

and
which forced me to deal with my own issues about significance, meaning, calling, ministry, and judgement

but also makes me wonder about accountability

what are we to do
if we see someone living contrary to the scriptures
who is in leadership
but who has no accountability?
no governing authority to whom they are supposed to report?
no one to "remove them" from their "position"?

this is scary to me

because i think - in the absence of accountability - the only thing that truly authenticates the ministry of someone is their charisma and their talent

and we are all easily swayed by those

now,
this may be why the book of jude is given to us in our bibles

but i'm wrestling about whether or not instructing people to read and re-read the book of jude is ever really a sufficient response to the ironies and injustices i see in the world of ministry around me.

how about you?

friends, not companies

i'm in paducah, kt, right now spending some time with my friend brad [a pastor here of a cool church]. brad and i met in college and have spent a good amount of time over the years woodshopping ideas over the phone and keeping one another fresh and innovative.

one of the things that being with brad affirms most for me
is how much energy/vitality/freshness i get from being with my friends in ministry

whether that's jvo or randy
vince, mark, steve, glen
cam, brad, ryan, ryan, stephan, dan
or any of the other million friends i have loved serving jesus with [perhaps most especially my dad]
i always find that it's my friends who keep me honest
keep me sharp
and keep me pure

ironically,
i don't think i've ever experienced sharpness, purity, or a challenge to integrity from my denomination

this isn't to say that the denom is anti-sharp, etc...
just that a group like that is a particularly impotent motivator

which is the primary reason why i've always tried to lead as a friend
instead of as a boss, or "pastor", or "leader"

because i think bosses are dumb
pastors are [far too often]fake
and leaders are dumb [except, of course, for their keen ability to use a goofy language all it's own, complete with words like "paradigm-shift" or "vision-cast"]

jesus was a friend
"no longer do i call you servants, but friends...the friends of god"
and provides a pretty healthy example for another way to lead
to love
to be in ministry
to be in relationship
to serve
to go
to dream

this "friend" thing was brilliantly exemplified by the quakers [though they did get enough other stuff so weird as to make their "friendship" seem spooky], who lived and served together in a profoundly spiritual capacity

and [minus the spooky bits] this is really how i'm hoping to model my own "leadership" and set of associations

by having friends

now, i've been told that i can really only make this work up to a point
that - if i'm serious about "being the leader god has called me to be" - i'll have to accept that my friendships will be few

but that perspective, of course, falls victim to the way the world actually works
and i - together with my friends - am trying to fix this world
to put the pieces back together again
so the world will be more like the way god intended it

full of friends

natural friends

so much anger

i'm often troubled by the amount of anger expressed by christians at other christians

in my tribe, this is most often manifested as young people
or emergent types
or pomophiles
or dissenters
angry at the church-as-it-commonly-exists-in-america
for their
consumerism
apathy
uselessness
irrelevance
marriage to tradition/disregard for mission

but,
i actually believe that our anger at these [justifiably] bothersome traits
is as much of a problem as the problems we are identifying

first
because our anger allows others to dismiss us as idealists/professional protestors
whom they assume will never be happy because we're "anti-institutional"

second
because we're very free about the expression of our anger
such that others see our malice
and equate our hatred with the cause of christ
the fallacy of religious unity
and identify us as the evangelical al-queda
on par with jerry falwell
or those weirdos from the appalachians who call down judgement on those unlike themselves

and,
third,
because it makes jesus sad to see us hate the very people he loves

because
after all
he does indeed love the church

he died for the church

we're told in the gospels that men will know we are christ's disciples
by our love for one another

not by our cool churches
or narrative theology

but by our love

which - to me - is what seems most absent about our movement

there is no love for one another in the emerging church

we defend against our detractors
we're hospitable to people of other faiths
we're engaging with people of no faith
we're warm and loving for anyone god brings to us - except brothers and sisters from another part of our family

and this
more than anything
is the quality that disqualifies us from effecting real change in america

we don't live the gospel to those who already know it

A Time for Miracles: Bono speaks to Europe

Fifty years ago this week, the idea of Europe was set to paper, on a continent unsettled but past the worst of the postwar period. The air was clear of sulfur if not spleen. Ireland was a small rock in the North Atlantic made relevant only by its cultural totems and ever increasing diaspora. In Berlin a chasm was opening up between East and West--the partition of lives, fortunes and fates. In the global struggle between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., between freedom and totalitarianism, Europe was the fault line and the front line. Old Europe was being rebuilt to fight the next war: a battle not just of ideologies but also, very possibly, of nuclear arsenals. It was not a moment for dreaming--more like one for digging a basement and ordering a year's supply of tinned soup.

And yet this was the moment the New Europe was born.

On the continent that had been the theater for mankind's darkest hour, we witnessed a very human miracle. The people of Europe found that their capacity for destruction was mirrored by an equally immense capacity for forgiveness, grace and hope. Looking to the U.S., Europeans could see how cherry-picked European ideas from minds like Locke, Rousseau and Tom Paine could flourish in a society not polluted by blood and aristocracy. And so, in 1957, six nations signed the Treaty of Rome and, with that one crucial act, built a showcase of multilateralism, prosperity and international solidarity.

Fast-forward 50 years. An Irish rock star reads the treaty with the enthusiasm a child has for cold peas but does uncover what I think technocrats might call poetry. Not much of it--just a turn of phrase here and there. Like Article 177, which summons the signatories to foster "the sustainable economic and social development of the developing countries and more particularly the most disadvantaged among them" and calls for a "campaign against poverty in the developing countries." Not exactly Thomas Jefferson but a glimpse of the kind of vision that might bind us.

Over the next 50 years, we might need a little more poetry. Europe is a thought that has to become a feeling--one based on the belief that Europe stands only if injustice falls and that we find our feet only when our neighbors stand with us in freedom and equality. Our humanity is diminished when we have no mission bigger than ourselves. And one way to define who we are might be to spend more time looking across the eight miles of Mediterranean Sea that separates Europe from Africa.

There's an Irish word, meitheal. It means that the people of the village help one another out most when the work is the hardest. Most Europeans are like that. As individual nations, we may argue over the garden fence, but when a neighbor's house goes up in flames, we pull together and put out the fire. History suggests it sometimes takes an emergency for us to draw closer. Looking inward won't cut it. As a professional navel gazer, I recommend against that form of therapy for anything other than songwriting. We discover who we are in service to one another, not the self.

Today many rooms in our neighbor's house, Africa, are in flames. From the genocide in Darfur to the deathbeds in Kigali, with six AIDS patients stacked onto one cot, from the child dying of malaria to the village without clean water, conditions in Africa are an affront to every value we Europeans have ever seen fit to put on paper. We see in Somalia and Sudan what happens if more militant forces fill the void and stir dissent within what is, for the most part, a pro-Western and moderate Muslim population. (Nearly half of Africa's people are devotees of Islam.) So whether as a moral or strategic imperative, it's folly to let this fire rage.

How will Europe respond? For all the babble of clashing ideas, there's more harmony than you might think. Historic promises have been made on aid, debt and even the thorny subject of trade. Aggressive progress on these, matched by advances in fighting the evils of corruption in Africa, could transform the continent and prevent the fire from spreading. As a group, the E.U. countries have promised to commit 0.7 percent of GDP to the poorest of the poor. How Europe works to keep that promise is as important to Europe as it is to Africa.

We might remember that Europe, 50 years ago, did not pull itself back from the abyss on its own. Across the Atlantic was a nation with a pretty broad notion of neighbor. Sure, the Marshall Plan wasn't all altruism--the U.S. wanted a bulwark against Soviet expansion as the temperature of relations dropped below freezing. But it was also generosity on a scale never before seen in human history. It defined America in the cold war era.

What will define Europe in this new era? What will provide the bulwark against the extremism of our age?

Part of the answer lies eight miles away.

probably not a big deal for you

the other night i was struggling to shut my brain off and fall asleep [a fairly common occurence in my world], when i began to think about why i'm here.

now, typically, when i begin to wonder about that i've got more than one good answer; i mean, i never have a difficult time hypothesizing about why any of us are here [yes - i am familiar with the westminster short catechism] or why i'm here as a dad/husband/son/friend/pastor

but the other day was different

i just felt like i had to get specific

why am i alive
and on the earth
and a pastor
and a black-sheep pentecostal
and a dissident emergent
and a canadian in exile in my other home
with a penchant for media
with a creative mind that never shuts off
who likes knowledge
but hates academia and fights hard not to give in to pomp and pretense
who loves jesus and the church
but hates the western deterioration of christian spirituality into maxims and slogans

etc

etc

etc

why

am i [specifially me, with all of who i am - good and bad]

here [on earth, today, in michigan]?


well, leaving michigan aside for present purposes
i've become crystaline in one particular lens
which really does speak to my out-of-placeness among other pastors
or artists, or musicians
and perhaps even addresses my pathological obsession with local church ministry

i think i'm here
to create venues of spiritual interactivity and relationship

i'm here
to create
- because i'm an innovator
- because i'm a creator/artist/playwrite/musician/writer/thinker/programmer

i'm creating venues
- because i think space is sacred
- because i feel there are certain places that elicit certain emotions and legitimate spiritual responses to the working presence of the spirit of god
- because environmental worship shares much of the same benefits are environmental learning experiences, which immerse us into another world/perspective/esprit

these venues are spiritual
- because i'm not interested in making art, i'm here to help facilitate people who long to connect more meaningfully with god
- because humanity is spiritual, but ignorant of our true identity as image-bearers of god, and i want to help us remember that

these venues are interactive
- because presentation is not the only legitimate form of spiritual intersection
- because our knowledge of god cannot simply be gnosis [head-knowledge], but must also be noetics [the knowledge of lived-experience] and allowing space for interactivity draws people out of themselves and into moving with god's spirit and engaging him in those moments

those venues are relational
- because i really do find things that are uber-cool to be deathly monotonous without the randomization of laughter and open conversation
- because i think god resides in and among his people in collections as well as in isolation
- because the whole rest of the world is so fragemented we ought to be a haven of family networks and relationships, a surrogate home


this has been really helpful for me to articulate
i've thought about it a lot since i first landed on this thinking
and feel like i've tested it enough for it to remain true


so i've put it here for those of you who care
who - by the way - always bless me by demonstrating that care
because you are my friends

and my mom

:)