MegaShepherd - Christianity Today Magazine
Although I struggle with much of the megachurch model and the title of this article turns me off, overall this is a very challenging article especially on social justice issues. Here's a quote that really got me:

"Meeks believes that besides learning how to improve their reading, the third- graders learned that the church cares about them, that the 'kingdom is relevant' in their lives. That's a lesson he believes students are not hearing from most white evangelicals.
'Evangelicals must be very careful not to be irrelevant,' he says. 'Evangelicals will grab … one issue—like abortion—and they think that because they take a tough stand on abortion then they have addressed a societal ill. I don't hear the same outcry from any evangelical pulpit about the unequal funding for education among the haves and the have-nots.'
'I don't hear from the evangelical pulpit about the disparity in the prison population between blacks and whites, between the test scores of African American kids and white kids.'
'If white kids couldn't read and black kids could,' he adds, 'the evangelical church would address it. If white kids were in jail and not going to college, the evangelical church would address it. So if you live in a society and you only address the things that face your ethnicity, you are not really concerned about social ills.'
'My invitation to evangelicals who love the Lord is to partner with other Bible-believing churches who can address some social ills.'
Meeks hopes to persuade African American and white evangelicals to work together. And he's willing to start small—say, by getting together for dinner.
'I want my children to see that,' Meeks says. 'Most black children grow up never having had dinner with white people. Most white people grow up never having had African Americans in their homes. So we view each other as 30-second sound bites on television.'
Meeks says he'd like any church, anywhere, to take Salem up on this offer. 'We can do it with ten [families], do it with five, do it with those that are willing. It has to get started somewhere. The world will never see how colorblind Jesus is until they see how colorblind the church is.'"

MSNBC - Does a good sleep make you smarter?
This is a fascinating article! All of those who are struggling with the modern church and seeking to find creative solutions to the current problems seen in the church need to kick the caffeine habit and commit to a good night's sleep:)!

Seriously, isn't this the way God would wire creation in the first place? Each night we go to sleep and it is a sort of Sabbath. We cease our work and trust that God takes over. Maybe the postmodern world will create space in our lives for rest. Better yet, Sabbath.

Evangelicals and ecumenism
With my evangelical background, the last church I thought I would be ordained in was the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). I never dreamed I would pastor a DoC church let alone a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)! The week before my ordination, I kept having doubts. Is this alright? Is this what I am supposed to do? What will all of my evangelical friends think? Many evangelicals are afraid that they will be considered guilty by association. They think that if you spend time with "liberals" and are ordained in a "liberal" denomination then you must be a liberal.

Maybe you've just outgrown the evangelical box.

I have crossed over. I have entered the mainline mainstream. And I love it! Here there is theological freedom (especially in the DoC). There is freedom to investigate and even embrace many ideas that are seen as wrong by evangelicals.

I am finding that these people, these “liberals” love Jesus Christ and His church. They love people. They seek to minister to all in the name and love of Jesus.

Moving into the mainline has opened my eyes to social justice issues that most evangelical communities completely miss. The mainline challenges me and stretches me.

It has been in the mainline that I have come to understand and appreciate liturgy (first in the Anglican Mission in America, now in the DoC and PCUSA). I have come to wrestle with the Sacraments and am seeking to embrace a sacramental view of life and ministry. I thank God that he called me to serve this DoC church out in the sticks! How else would he have moved me into the mainline?

No funerals!
For the first time in 2004 I will not be officiating at a funeral this week! Yet I did receive a call on Tuesday from a woman in the community whose mother-in-law is dying of cancer. She is only expected to live for two to three weeks. I visited with her Tuesday afternoon in the hospital. This will be the second terminally ill person I walk this path with in less than a year.

What do you say to an elderly woman who is dying? I enjoy sitting and listening, holding and crying, praying and grieving. I have walked into the rooms of terminal patients who are being told the “good news,” encouraged to say a prayer. Is this what I am to seek to do as a pastor?

As I wrestle with my calling and especially in moments of being at the bedside of a terminally ill person, my evangelical upbringing screams at me to share the gospel and make sure they are saved before they die. Yet I know I can’t control them or their response. I feel it is far more important to develop a relationship with this person, to weep with them, to mourn with them, to pray for them. I try to enter into conversations with them about their current experience. I try to let them know I love them. I try to communicate the love of Jesus to them through my words and actions. I desire for them to know Jesus Christ and to know that he is the way, the truth, and the life. But ultimately I know that I am not responsible for getting them there.

Brian McLaren talked about counting conversations rather than conversions. I want this woman and all the other terminally ill that I walk this path with and their families to know that I am their friend first regardless of their belief. I care about them because they are persons made in the image of God. I am building a relationship with them to get to know them, to love them, to minister in every way I can to them, not solely to convert them. If conversion happens great, but too often evangelicals treat that as the one and only goal of ministering to the terminally ill.

Five Days
Five days since I last posted. Sorry about that! I have been very busy and sick as well! No fun being sick!

I am struggling with the question of relevancy in the church. I plan to write about this issue for a few days as I wrestle through it. I have read some from Henri Nouwen and Eugene Peterson that really challenges our notions of relevancy. The Presbyterian tradition, which I am currently a part of, also challenges some of these ideas concerning relevancy.

What is it that the emergent church really wants? On the surface it appears that the emergent church is about a particular style of worship and about relevancy to the postmodern crowd.

But digging deeper, there are theological issues at stake in the emergent church. I would imagine that over time, the emerging theology will shape the worship more and more. Time and time again I see the concept of preaching challenged in emergent church discussions. Yet some emergent churches have preachers that preach for 45 minutes to an hour or longer! And yet there are other churches that focus on liturgy.

The overall concept that I see emerging is the idea of being true to yourself, your calling, and your convictions. Well just a few random thoughts for today. What do you think?

Bible Gateway : LUKE 3:15-22;
As a rookie preacher, I decided to preach through the lectionary for the first year or two in my first pastorate. I usually choose one text to preach from each week. Preaching the lectionary has kept me from wondering what to preach each week and has been a great time saver!

Last Sunday I preached on Luke 3:15-22, Luke's telling of the baptism of Jesus. Verses 19 and 20 have stuck with me all week long. In our postmodern times many people are wrestling with the question of sexuality and especially sex before/outside of marriage. In light of these discussions I have found John's rebuke of Herod especially challenging.

Why did John feel compelled to rebuke Herod on this issue? Many in the emerging church would say that we should not judge people on these issues. Yet John said something! He said something that led to his being jailed and eventually executed.

I am not saying that we should sit in judgement of those who come to our churches. We are all sinners and all sins are equal in God's sight. One of my churches has a young woman attending who is currently living with her man but not married. They also have a child. Some in our community see this as scandalous and she should not feel welcome at our church. I think we must welcome her! God is drawing her to himself! But will there come a point and time when her moral choices must be challenged by the church because they are not in line with the gospel? Do most of these "challenges" result from a modernist, middle-class American family values orientation? Or do they come from a growing relationship with a gracious, holy, loving, righteous Heavenly Father?

Jesus welcomed sinners. Jesus showed mercy to the woman caught in adultery. He did not condemn her. Yet he did say, "go now and leave your life of sin." What is the postmodern church called to be and do in relation to sin and the people (which is all of us!) who are entangled in it?

emergentYS Store - Welcome!
I must say that I am a bit concerned with the rush to publish and produce resources for the emergent church. This is grossly overgeneralized and probably unfair but I fear that profits will begin to determine what is written and published.

ABC.com: Dreamkeeper
Wow! Did you see this miniseries. The previews didn't do much for me. But watching it was something else. A powerful example of the power of stories to shape our lives and our beliefs. I think that the more native pre-modern cultures have much to teach the emergin/postmodern/whatever church.

Another week, another fuenral
It's hard to believe but I am averaging a funeral a week in early 2004. Hopefully this won't continue!

The most difficult part for me in officiating a funeral is knowing what to say about someone I didn't know. I work the gospel in by preaching the hope of the resurrection through Jesus Christ.

Hopefully this tactfully calls people to examine their lives in light of the claims of Christ and it also gives them hope. Ultimately, the eternal destiny of someone is between them and God. It is not for me to judge.

Purpose Driven
I don't get it. What's the deal with the 40 Days of Purpose? I've even read the book and it was far from life changing. I learned nothing new from it. It rehashed and repackaged many things that I had learned from my church when I was in junior high.

It's a program geared to bring people into churches. In fact the above site gives numerical data as the support for the effectiveness of this program. Why do we want programs that bring numerical growth? Is this the only measurement for success the modern evangelical church has available?

I hope it's not the only measurement for success God has. If it is, then most of God's most gifted and anointed preachers and leaders did a rather poor job.

I am also troubled with what happens to so many people once the special event is done. Will they come back? Do they return? Do they enter into a community of faith?

Formulas of success for pastors and churches make me sick. Unfortunately I think many emerging/postmodern churches are prone to create formulas and models for success, at least currently. Perhaps in the future, our culture's orientation will be so different that we no longer look for formulas. What will it be that we look for? Authenticity? Honesty? Relationship? Faithfulness?

Perhaps the most important question is, what does God look for? How does God define success? I bet it differs significantly from many of our answers.

Sleeby.com - Hardcore, Punk, Emo, Alternative music
Here's a quick plug for a friend of mine's website dedicated to Christian music in the hardcore, punk, emo, and alternative styles. He knows his stuff and often has great deals on CD's. Check it out!

Busy week
I have been so busy with the funeral and visitation that I have hardly had time to read this week.

I had a great discussion with a member of one of my churches yesterday at lunch. We have a new woman coming to our church who lives with a man she is not married to. She is young in her 20's and most people are excited she is there. Her significant other came on Christmas Eve.

But some around town feel that they should not be welcome in our church because they live together and are not married. How frustrating! I believe that this couple should be welcome at our church!

The Portland Mercury: Feature (12/18/03)
Found this article referenced on another blog and checked it out. Read the entire article! It is a powerful statement on the e/p/w.

Another funeral
I have a funeral this morning. The man was 93 years old and I never met him. This will be my 14th funeral in 12 months! All part of being a pastor in a rural community.

As I visited with his family yesterday, I was struck with how different life was way back when. He used to harvest corn with his bare hands and it would take all day to harvest nearly 100 bushels of corn. Today we harvest 100 bushels of corn in about two minutes!

Technology has clearly led to more efficient production on the farm but it is also bringing the death of the small family farm. Will it eventually bring the death of rural America?

I find that when I talk to these old timers I am embarrassed at how easily I get discouraged and how quick I am to loss hope.

The church will survive. It may not be very successful. It may be very dysfunctional. But it will survive. Jesus will make sure that it does. Eugene Peterson in his book Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work has a wonderful discussion concerning the perseverance of the church in even unhealthy and dysfunctional forms. I would encourage all e/p/w (emerging, postmodern, whatever) church leaders and thinkers to read this book.

This book encouraged me, that even though my small churches (I pastor two "yoked" churches) are dysfunctional and full of people who don't get it (especially that without change the churches will continue to decline) that they are still the gathered community of God and he will continue to work through them and persevere them.

DenverBroncos.com -- Official Web Site of the Denver Broncos
Ouch! What a bummer loss for my Denver Broncos! Hopefully Shannon Sharpe will return for another year. It would be difficult to end such a great career with a blowout loss in the playoffs.

Matthew 2.1-12
Wrapping up my sermon for the week and I came across this at textweek.com. It is a great reflection on Matthew 2:1-21 which understands the magi as the unchurched who come looking for Jesus. The reflection asks, "Where are the unchurched at today" and "What speaks to the unchurched today? What might God do to get their attention? What might the church do to get their attention? What will make sense to them? Some answers are: style(s) of music, drama, quality of performances, meeting people's needs, caring for others, being a friend. I'm afraid that much of what they church has done in the past bores people. It drives them away. It doesn't attract them."

Great stuff! The commentary on this passage also has a warning about us being careful about what ideas we give the unchurched about church. "With all the good, flashy, stuff that may speak to the unchurched today, they need to be encountered by trained leaders in the Church and the Word of God or they are likely to make wrong assumptions and end up in the wrong place. The traditions of the church are vitally important to keep us going in the right direction – towards the salvation given by God through Christ."

Wow! I think this might be a good passage to reflect on for our discussions concerning the e/p/w church.

Smart Bombs, Serial Killing, and the Rapture
This is a fascinating article that I am currently reading and wrestling with. The author, Peter Yoonsuk Paik, argues that much of the American response to 9/11 has been theologically motivated much like the media has characterized the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

One of the best parts of the article is a discussion on the Left Behind book series.

I have only begun to scratch the surface of this article and look forward to thinking through it some more. I believe that it could have many implications for the emerging church's eschatology. Clearly postmodern eschatology will look very different from modern eschatology.