Allelon Ministries

Check out Allelon Ministries:

The ongoing vision of Allelon is that the Church would be a people among whom God can live, as sign, symbol, and foretaste of his redeeming love and grace; who in their life together will, reproduce God's Kingdom life; who will as God's creative instruments, embody, announce, and demonstrate the Gospel of the Kingdom; and, as God's redeemed and redemptive alternative community, will be allelon for the whole church and for the sake of the world.

Some real quality people make up the advisory board. Plus there are lots of excellent articles to plow through! Enjoy!

Visual Poetry: Vampire Christians

Here's the Google visual for a Vampire Christian using the Google Hack Visual Poetry:



Yikes! Kinda scary!

Vampire Christians

Another powerful quote from the Relevant Magazine interview with Dallas Willard.

[RM]: “I think you quoted Tozer a while back in another interview where he suggested that a new heretical thought had entered the modern Christian thought. The idea that people come to Jesus and say, ‘I want some of your blood for the forgiveness of my sins, but I don’t have any intention of following you or obeying you, and now if you’ll excuse me I’d like to get on with my life’.”

[DW]: “Those are what I call ‘Vampire Christians’. Tozer actually does say that this is outright heresy. He was very clear about this and the dear man was such a Christ-like man that he could do this and get away with it. But, on the other hand, you’ll have people who will hear this and say, ‘Isn’t that pretty?’ and they’ll do absolutely nothing about it.”

Wow! Heresy! I wonder how many of folks in our churches today would bristle at that word? I wonder how many Christians are truly Vampire Christians?

So what's the antidote to vampire Christians? Discipleship! Making disciples! Let us go and make disciples of all nations!

Poor Preaching

Another great quote from the Relevant Magazine interview with Dallas Willard.

As intelligent men they were capable of addressing issues clearly and that is what you do not hear today. The level of intelligence in our sermons, the abysmal story telling that you hear constantly is just hopeless. The power that comes through the Bible itself, which is the most intelligent book ever written, is lost.

I have read many blogs bemoaning the role of the sermon in the future church. But maybe many are so critical of the sermon because so many sermons are done so poorly.

I am a rather inexperienced preacher. I have only been preaching weekly for the last 20 months or so. I am constantly amazed at the excitment of my parishioners when it comes to my preaching. They are regularly extremely complimentary. I find this surprising and sad as many of these folks are in their 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's and have gone to church faithfully throughout their lives. Shouldn't I not be one of the best preachers, with my relative inexperience, that they have had at their church?

Yet, I fear that I am one of the better preachers from their point of view. The only reason I can give for this is that many of their previous pastors were going through the motions and not faithfully and diligently working at the task of preaching.

I don't mean to be overly critical but in the two denominations I serve (the PCUSA and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) I haven't been very impressed with much of the preaching that I have been exposed to. If I had to endure some of the preaching I have heard week in and week out I'd have long ago left the church. Fortunately, I grew up sitting under some wonderful preaching at Cherry Hills Community Church and Dr. Jim Dixon.

I believe their is a bright future for preaching in the church. But great preaching doesn't just happen, you must work at it and cooperate with the Holy Spirit as you prepare each week.

A9 hits

I received my first hit from the new A9 search engine and my first hit from Altavista. The A9 hit was for "Groothius" my Philosophy of Religion professor at Denver Seminary. The Altavista hit was for "Eintein's General Theory of creativity". It's always fun to see how people end up Out in the sticks.

Fourth of July Syncretism

From Open Source Theology:

I lived for two years in the Netherlands as an “expatriate” - someone who lives as a non-citizen in a country not their own. I learned a lot of things, but most of all, through the homesickness I sometimes felt, even in the midst of loving my experience of living abroad, I learned an excellent model for our time here on earth. We are, all of us who know Christ, expatriates- living for a time in a foreign country. We can enjoy it, but if we ever stop feeling homesick, we are in trouble.

So, next Fourth of July, go ahead and light off some fireworks, thank God for the freedoms you have, enjoy a nice parade or picnic… but maybe leave the Star-Spangled Banner out of the worship set, okay?

I really appreciate Bob's thoughts in this article and yet I know that to not have any patriotic songs in my churches on July 4th would be seen as anathema to my church members.

Part of the issue is that my churches are full of WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam vets. They take their patriotism seriously! And since my generation has never been to war, I can't easily stand in judgment of them, speaking prophetically to them. Yet I feel the "God and Country" view does need to be challenged. (Sorry dad!) So how do we challenge this attitude with gentleness and respect for our Veterans of Foreign Wars?

It feels to me that when we include "God and Country" themes we are delving into syncretism. We are fusing worship of our country to worship of God in our churches. This is a dangerous practice indeed. It is dangerous to our souls. It is dangerous to our understanding of the Kingdom of the Heavens. We must gently challenge this idea with the old war veterans and fervent patriots in our midst. Ultimately, all disciples must be called to allegiance to the Kingdom of God.

Books & Culture's Book of the Week: Insect Theodicy - Books & Culture

Books & Culture's Book of the Week: Insect Theodicy - Books & Culture:

Perhaps what most weighed upon my mind as I read Lockwood's book was his diagnosis of religious responses to the locust plagues. On the American frontier, farmers who faced the oncoming cloud of ruin were forced to ask for aid. At first, they asked the church, and the church responded with prayers. But when it came time to ask for more than prayer, the church shut its doors. As Lockwood states, 'Offering up prayers was one thing--giving up wages was quite another.'

In the end, the destitute turned to the federal government for their subsistence, eventually raising a series of fundamental political questions that would set precedents for agricultural policy, natural disaster, and federal relief into the present time. Today, we wait for the government to pronounce a 'natural disaster'--where 'natural' means precisely that.

This sounds like a fascinating book. I hope to pick it up someday soon! The comment from this review that caught my attention was the idea that farmers turned to the church for help with the locust plagues and the church had little to offer other than prayers. I'm sure that this is a gross over-generalization. I would imagine that some churches and some Christians responded in very tangible ways for the needs of the farmers. And yet there is little a small, rural church could offer if the community's corps were wiped out in one plague.

As a small, rural church pastor, I often feel like all I can offer are prayers. Yet many do ask for more than prayers from the church and the pastor. How should the church repond? What should the church do?

Google, visual poetry, and the emerging church

Here's a fun Google Hack that's called Visual Poetry. Enter the words "Emerging Church" into the search field and here are the images that you get:

Book Meme Redux

Here's another look up in a book thingy making its way around the blogs...

Reviving a meme borrowed from my cousin a couple months back . . .

1. Grab the closest book.
2. Turn to page 64.
3. Find third complete sentence.
4. Print sentence in comments here or on your own site (a trackback would be nice).

Here's mine from Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy:

Now, Jesus himself was and is a joyous, creative person.

Now that's a great quote and a great thought to ponder!

Dallas Willard Interview

Here's a great quote from the interview:

The greatest challenge the church faces today is to be authentic disciples of Jesus. And by that I mean they’re learning from Him how to live their life, as He would live their life if He were they. So that means, whatever I am, whoever I am, I take Him into my whole life as my Lord. Lord means that He’s my teacher. Another way of putting this is to say that our greatest challenge is to recover Jesus the Teacher. You know, if you don’t have a teacher you can’t have a disciple. Disciples are just students. Unfortunately, it’s a long and convoluted story, but roughly over the last two hundred years, Jesus as Teacher has simply disappeared. Whether Liberal or Conservative, it doesn’t make any difference. This is the unfortunate fact, and it lies at the foundation of the efforts of many people today to find a different form for the Church.

I am currently reading The Divine Conspiracy by Willard and this is a theme that he continues to emphasize. So how do we do this? How do we create new forms of church where people become "authentic disciples of Jesus"? As a pastor, I am often frustrated by the lack of authentic discipleship and yet I often feel powerless to change or challenge much of it.

This is one reason why I believe that prayer is so important to the pastoral calling. Eugene Peterson discusses this extensively in Working the Angles. Pastors must be people who pray...yet I so often neglect this. Why? Because much of the time it isn't urgent. It doesn't call me, setup an appointment with me, end up in the hospital, or show up in my inbox. Prayer is the essential non-urgent task that all pastors must diligently engage in.

CNN.com - Wi-Fi farming expected to catch on - Jun 18, 2004

CNN.com - Wi-Fi farming expected to catch on - Jun 18, 2004:

Pocknee's lab has created a boxy contraption that has rubber tires, a jumble of wires and hoses, a GPS system and several computers. It can be guided by GPS signals or a human with a joystick through a wireless network.

I know several farmers who already use GPS to guide there trackers through the field. With robotic tractors, there will be even fewer people living in the rural areas. Wow, now we can all go live in the cities and add to the congestion, pollution, traffic, noise, violence...

Prostitutes love Jesus too

Continuing in the vein of Nouwen's book here's Dallas Willard's thoughts on the relationship between love and faith from his excellent book The Divine Conspiracy:

"Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You didn’t give me a kiss of greeting, but she has kissed my feet again and again from the time I first came in. You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume. I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” (Luke 7:44-47, NLT)

“Loved me much!” Simply that, and not the customary proprieties, was now the key of entry into the rule of God.

Jesus went on to say to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go with peace in your heart.” Here is God’s rule in action.

We must not overlook the connection between faith and love. The woman saw Jesus and recognized who he was and who dwelt in him. That vision was her faith. She knew he was forgiving and accepting her before he ever said, “Your sins are forgiven.” She knew because she had seen a goodness in him that could only be God, and it broke her heart with gratitude and love.

I find this passage fascinating! She hadn't attended a new members class or a confirmation class. She hadn't been instructed as to what the correct propositions concerning Jesus were that she needed to believe. She didn't pray the "sinner's prayer." She simply observed Jesus, was attracted to him, and fell in love with him. She just loved Jesus.

This is of vital importance for us today. Acts 1:1 says,

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach.

I thought it was finished? But no, Christ's work continues through his followers! Therefore, the question for us is, do our lives attract people or repel? Do they observe us, are attracted to us, and fall in love with Jesus who dwells in each of us who are now in Christ?

Sadly this is often not the case in my life...forgive me Father, let me fall more and more in love with you so others can too.

Relevance and the Emerging Church, part 2

Nouwen in his book In the Name of Jesus states that the discipline to overcome the temptation for relevance is contemplative prayer.

The question is not: How many people take you seriously? How much are you going to accomplish? Can you show some results? But: Are you in love with Jesus? Perhaps another way of putting the question would be: Do you know the incarnate God?...

To live a life that is not dominated by the desire to be relevant but is instead safely anchored in the knowledge of God's first love, we have to be mystics. A mystic is a person whose identity is deeply rooted in God's first love.

If there is any focus that the Christian leader of the future will need, it is the discipline of dwelling in the presence of the One who keeps asking us, "Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?" It is the discipline of contemplative prayer. Through contemplative prayer we can keep ourselves from being pulled from one urgent issue to another and from becoming strangers to our own and God's heart...

It is not enough for priests and ministers of the future to be moral people, well trained, eager to help their fellow humans, and able to respond creatively to the burning issues of their time. All of that is very valuable and important, but it is not the heart of Christian leadership. The central question is, Are the leaders of the future truly men and women of God, people with an ardent desire to dwell in God's presence, to listen to God's voice, to look at God's beauty, to touch God's incarnate Word and to tates fully God's infinite goodness?

Wow! Challenging stuff! So let's ask the question...Are we truly men and women of God?

Relevance and the Emerging Church

A few days ago Maggi Dawn referencing a few posts from for the time being made the point that we should regard attempts at relevancy with adequate suspicion. Geoff states:

I want to explore the significance of replacing the project of relevance with the project of identity. Let us not seek to be relevant but to express our identity as follows of Christ, as Christians within the particular cultures that we are in.

As I mentioned last week, I re-read Nouwen's excellent book In the Name of Jesus. In this book Nouwen looks at the temptation of Jesus Christ in the wilderness and the reinstatement of Peter by Christ following his denial as helps in shaping Christian leadership. Christ's first temptation was relevance. "Turn these stones into bread." Nouwen states:

Jesus' first temptation was to be relevant: to turn stones into bread. Oh, how often have I wished I could do that! Walking through the "young towns" on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, where children die from malnutrition and contaminated water, I would not have been able to reject the magical gift of making the dusty stone-covered streets into places where people could pick up any of the thousands of rocks and discover that they were croissants, coffee cakes, or fresh-baked buns, and where they could fill their cupped hands with stale water form the cisterns and joyfully realize that what they were drinking was delicious milk...

The leader of the future will be the one who dares to claim his irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows him or her to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success and to bring the light of Jesus there.

Clearly relevancy is an issue and even a temptation in ministry.

The solution for this, according to Nouwen is the discipline of contemplative prayer. Tomorrow I'll write about Nouwen's ideas concerning contemplative prayer.

In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership

Amazon.com: Books: In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership
This weekend, I am re-reading this excellent book by Nouwen. I'll post some quotes and comments when I get a chance.

We are in Breckenridge this weekend as I am officiating at a friend's wedding. It is so beautiful here! And performing weddings for friends in beautiful places is one of the best perks of pastoral ministry!

Finished "When the Kings Come Marching In"

When the Kings Come Marching In
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I have an earlier version of the book. I am tempted to buy the updated book! Much of Mouw's discussion is relevant for the emerging church discussion. Here's a quote to wet your appetite (gleaned from pages 61-63):

This fact, then, (that Jesus is the light of the Celestial City) must first of all be pointed to for the benefit of those who have professed to honor Jesus as the Lamb of God but who have paid little attention to the cultural dimensions of his atoning work. Some Christians have greatly emphasized the individual benefits of the redemptive ministry of Jesus Christ. They have viewed the work of the Cross almost exclusively in terms of a transaction that took place to effect the salvation of individuals...

We ought not to belittle this important emphasis in any way. It is an emphasis that has come to be associated with an "evangelical" type of faith; indeed, it expresses something of the very heart of the Protestant Reformation. Jesus died to cancel debt of our individual sins, and the believer is justified by faith in this atoning sacrifice. Every person who trust in Jesus as the one who has "paid it all" can live in the confidence that he or she has been granted an everlasting pardon form the penalty of sin...

Some Christians have expressed suspicions about this emphasis on the salvation of individuals; some have even ridiculed those who have insisted that this is a central emphasis in the Gospel. They have feared that a strong pattern of "individualism" lurks just beneath the surface of "I-centered" expressions of Christian faith.

We cannot deny that dangerous tendencies manifest themselves in this kind of piety...

There is nothing that is intrinsically inappropriate, then, about an understanding of the Gospel which strongly emphasizes the individualizing love of God. Indeed, properly understood, this emphasis can express a profound comprehension of the Gospel.

The dangers arise when this element is emphasized to the exclusion of other important dimensions of the work of the Lamb. Jesus died to save sinners--but he is also the Lamb who serves as the lamp in the transformed City. As the Lamb of God he will draw all of the goods, artifacts, and instruments of culture to himself; the kings of the earth will return their authority and power to the Lamb who sits upon the throne; Jesus is the one whose blood has purchased a multi-national community, composed of people from every tribe and tongue and nation. His redemptive ministry, as the ministry of the Lamb, is cosmic in scope.

Let me encourage you, in the words of Augustine to "pick up and read" this excellent book.

Postmodern Community and The Colonial House | PBS

I was reading an interview of Stanley Grenz by ginkworld on Stanley Grenz's site. The interview includes a discussion about community. Here's a quote from Grenz:

Postmodern people do indeed "crave" community, but unfortunately they so often settle for "lifestyle enclaves," largely because the only way they know how to relate to others is as "consumers."

I agree with Grenz that we are greatly shaped by our culture as consumers. Consumerism informs so much of our lives. So the question in my mind was what does community look like that is not radically shaped by consumerism?

Enter Colonial House, a wonderful PBS program documenting the efforts of twenty-first century westerners to live like 17th century American colonists.

Colonists around the campfire. 

These individuals experienced community in terms that few in our modern age ever will. They had to depend greatly upon one another for food, shelter, and companionship. Their experiences included shared grief, mutual suffering, celebration, intense conflict, and a common mission. Sounds like koinonia doesn't it?

Yet how much of our current communities even church communities are based on consumption?