ALLELON Ministries - Worlds in Collision: The Fallen Powers - Part 1

Worship is a furnace of transformation because it is there we learn to know Him who is beyond our knowing.

Wonderful quote. Yet is this what is happening in worship in our churches? In any of our churches?

ALLELON Ministries - The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience

Another great quote from Sider's article.

Unfaithful evangelical lifestyles are a blatant denial of Jesus’ Gospel. If the Gospel were merely the forgiveness of sins, then we could accept the Gospel and go on living in the same racist, adulterous, materialistic way. But if the Gospel is the Good News of the kingdom, as Jesus taught, and if that means that part of the Gospel is that right now a new redeemed community of transformed persons living in the power of the Holy Spirit is breaking into history, then whenever so-called Christians live like the world, their very lives are evidence against Jesus’ teaching that the kingdom is now breaking into history.

ALLELON Ministries - The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience

One of the greatest scandals today–at least as devastating as the “scandal of the evangelical mind” that Wheaton historian Mark Noll has lamented–is that vast numbers of evangelicals do not practice what they preach. The polling data is clear. “Gallup and Barna hand us survey after survey,” Michael Horton says, “demonstrating that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered and sexually immoral as the world in general.” One wonders if the central evangelical belief in a new birth through personal faith in Christ who sends the Holy Spirit to transform us into the very image of Christ is really a farce, fraud or false promise.

This is a powerful, sobering article. Sadly as a pastor, I think his right. And I think this in part is why the emerging church is, well...emerging. Younger evangelicals (post-evangelicals?) are tried of playing church. They want true community, true reconciliation, true transformation.

Before coming to these small rural churches, I worked at 3 large churches. Two of these churches had attendance of over 1000 each Sunday morning and the 3rd was in the neighborhood of 600 to 700. Often I struggled with how much of an impact we were really making on people's lives. We're people really changing, really transforming, really morphing? Sadly often the answer was no.

And it doesn't appear to be any better for small churches either. Many times because we live so close to each other we tend to get sideways with one another. And then we handle the conflict that results horribly! We are passive agressive, we gossip, we deceive, we get even.

This is why I am currently preaching the Sermon on the Mount following Dallas Willard's excellent book, The Divine Conspiracy. In this sermon, Jesus makes it clear that transformation is the rule rather than the exception. Kingdom subjects will change!

The research sited in this article appears to show what Willard calls "barcode" theology. Many believe that if we just get the right belief, the right knowledge, believe the right theory of the atonement, regardless of how we live our lives, then we will avoid hell and go to heaven. Many think that when God scans the barcode, as long as it is right on the outside, it doesn't matter what is on the inside. But even if a sack of manure has a barcode for perfume on it, it's still a sack of manure!

Do we really think God would set up a system, a barcode system that we could beat?

Younger pastors ask: Is preaching out of touch?

Very interesting article on preaching. Includes thoughts from Doug Pagitt, Tim Keel, Rudy Carrasco, Karen Ward, Chris Seay, Fred Craddock, Charles Bugg, and George Mason. Very thought provoking regarding preaching styles.

I like the comparison of preaching to jazz improv. I played the trumpet in high school and college in jazz bands and greatly enjoyed the creativity and freedom of improv. Yet to be a good improv player you really had to know music. You had to know the piece you were playing, you had to know the instrument.

Preaching is like this as well. I try to preach the same sermon twice each week, once at each of my churches. Yet I am often amazed, as is my wife who listens to my sermons at both churches (she's a saint and a glutton for punishment!) how differently the sermons turn out. I think this is because of the community I am preaching to at each church is so different. In the exegesis of my audience I realize that different parts of the sermon will need to be emphasized. Actually, I probably don't know this, but God does!

Naked in the Pulpit - LeadershipJournal.net

I am trying to describe the kingdom, life, and God honestly so exchange can happen. To do that, I've got to be willing to be vulnerable, to get naked at some level.

This is a great article by Tim Keel on preaching. Be sure to listen to some of his sermons and hear it in action.

Why messy Scriptures, part 2

Do you ever allow yourself to read the Bible and be bothered by what you read? Permission to not like what you are reading? Do you ever leave the Bible feeling disturbed? There is a lot of disturbing, confusing, and upsetting things in Scripture.

To do this is to interact with the Bible as a human being. Again, that's part of my purpose for posting Messy Scriptures. I want to give myself permission to be disturbed and confused and upset by what I read. This allows me to be deeply moved and challenged by what I read.

This doesn't mean that my view of Scripture is questionable. It doesn't mean that I think the Bible is not inspired by God. It just means that I am trying to be honest with the Scriptures and my reactions to what I read.

I think Christians often feel obligated to like what they read in Scripture. This in a sense is a lens we have when we come to the text.

So give yourself permission to be disturbed, confused, upset, or joyful. Pay attention to your emotional, intellectual, and spiritual response to the Scriptures.

I'm a Wizard!

My Inner Hero - Wizard!





There are many types of magic, but all require a sharp mind and a cool head. There is no puzzle I can't solve, no problem I can't think my way out of. When you feel confused or uncertain, you can always rely on me to untangle the knots and put everything back in order for you.



How about you? Click here to find your own inner hero.

Just for fun!

Postmodernism Youth Ministry in Adolescence: A Look at the Culture of Youth Ministry : Youthworker Journal

Obsessed with cool. Trnedy. Impulsive. Self-focused. Caught up in the moment. Probably sounds like a description of some of the kids in your youth group.

But, actually, um....well...this is not an article about youth culture, or the world of today’s teenagers. This is an article about us—those of us in the youth ministry culture, those of us who work with teenagers—and how we seem to be sliding into an adolescent approach to our faith and mission. Look at our “must read" books, listen to our conversations, go to our seminars, and measure our values. Even a quick survey of the current youth ministry culture tells the story: we’re not just working with teenagers; we’re starting to think like them.

This is a very good article and critique of the Emergent church/postmodern thing.

Calvin College on U2

But why a class on U2, one of the world's most adored rock bands, at a conservative Christian college?

I wish I could have studied U2 for credit!

Messy Scriptures #5 : Genesis 29

Twice in this narrative we are told that Jacob loved Rachel. This becomes the crux of this messy Scripture passage.

Jacob works for seven years for Laban to get Rachel as his wife. On completing this, Jacob is given Leah as his wife by Laban. After sleeping with Leah, Jacob realizes that he has been tricked by Laban. Laban appeals to tradition and says that after a week Jacob can also have Rachel in exchange for another seven years of work.

So after seven years and one week, Jacob is finally married to his true love, Rachel and her older sister Leah. Jacob is an unintentional polygamist. Obviously by the standards of his culture this is not that bad of a thing. But clearly this challenges much of what we understand love to be.

In our culture, those who espouse abstinence encourage young people to wait to have sex, at the very least, until they find someone they really love and at the very most, until they are married.

But what are we to do with passages like this and the following story in chapter 30? Jacob apparently does love Leah (v. 30) but he loves Rachel more. Yet to compound the problem, God opens Leah’s womb because he “saw that Leah was unloved” (v. 31). (So was she loved or not?! Guess I’ll take God’s word for it that she wasn’t loved. This just makes the issue all that more vexing!) Rachel is barren perhaps, reading between the lines, because she is loved. Strange.

So what’s poor Jake to do? He’s married to Leah who he apparently doesn’t love but she’s his wife so according to all proponents of abstainence he can have sex with her. Yet he loves Rachel so for her sake and for the sake of their love shouldn’t he abstain from sexual relations with Leah? Confused? I am!

To further complicate things, Rachel is envious of her sister and gives her maid Bilhah to Jacob so she can have children through her. Once Bilhah has two children by Jacob, Leah, who isn’t bearing children anymore at this point, gives her maid Zilpah to Jacob to keep up with Rachel and Bilhah. Zilpah bears two children.

The narrator never tells us how Jacob feels towards Bilhah and Zilpah. It is very clear though that he has sex with them. By today’s Christian moral standards, derived from the Bible, Jacob is a moral disaster! Yet God blesses this moral disaster. Laban says that “I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you” (Genesis 30:27).

Clearly this messy passage of Scripture presents some troubling issues for Christians. Today many assume that God does not bless moral disasters. In fact, many argue that God judges people who are immoral. Some have said that this is the explanation for AIDS, the tsunami, 9-11, and so on and so forth.

But here, one of the patriarchs of Israel, clearly acting in a way that would get his membership revoked from most churches (let alone disqualified for leadership in the church), experiences God’s blessing. What a mess! It makes you wonder if God sees these things quite differently from us.

Messy Scriptures #4 : Genesis 27

Genesis 27

Here we find Jacob lying to his father Isaac about his identity. Clearly it is Rebekah’s idea. She eavesdrops on Esau and Isaac’s conversation and comes up with a plan.

Look at how far they go with the plan. She prepares the meal and covers Jacob’s smooth skin with goatskins. She dresses Isaac in Esau’s clothing. Jacob lies to his father three times, each time asserting to his blind, questioning father that he is Esau.

Three times he lies. Three times! Isn’t this troubling? This is far from commendable behavior! Children shouldn’t lie to their parents! Parents shouldn’t scheme with their children against one another! A parent should never cause their child to lie! Talk about a dysfunctional family!

What are we to make of this?

You’d expect, according to common Christian theology that God would work against injustice, side with the victimized, and seek to right this wrong. You’d think he would discipline the liars, the deceivers, the schemers.

But he doesn’t. When God finally says something in chapter 28, he does not speak condemnation against Rebekah or Jacob. He does not seek to consol Esau or Isaac. He sides with Jacob and Rebekah. “…the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go…”

Isaac’s blessing of Jacob is ratified by God! God doesn’t even hint at the idea that the means in which the blessing was attained was wrong, evil, or deceitful!

Rebekah has accomplished God’s will, right? In Genesis 25:23 The Lord told Rebekah, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.” Rebekah was justified in her mind to deceive Isaac. But was it justified before God?

Why messy Scriptures

I am often disgusted by the poor thinking I see coming from many Christians today. Christian radio, TV, books, magazines, and the like are often poorly thought through. The Bible is seen as one big answer book with every story and passage functioning much like a fable with a nice little moral at the end.

To counter this, I present Messy Scriptures. Don’t get me wrong. I believe that the Bible is the unique Word of God. I believe it is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and encouraging. But the Bible presents many difficult and challenging issues if you read it slowly, carefully, and deliberately enough.

For those of us who grow up in the church (myself included) we forget what this book sounds like. We have heard the stories over and over in church. But we forget the moral dilemmas, the challenges, the R-rated Scriptures, the troubling behavior of the “heroes” which often goes unchecked and unchallenged in any real sense.

We have developed a lens with which we see Scripture through. I like chipping away at that lens. I like pointing out that lens. I like trying to remove the lens. And when you remove the lens, you sometimes find a mess. Messy Scriptures. Reading Scripture without a lens (well, at least a different one!).

This idea comes from many classes I enjoyed with Dr. Danny Carroll at Denver Seminary and from some ideas from Dr. Steven Sample’s book “The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership”.

These readings will prove to be challenging to many, unorthodox maybe even heretical to some, scary to others, unprofitable to still others, but really fun to me! The readings are intended to push our thinking, to challenge our assumptions, to push the envelop, and to foster discussion.

Finally, I reserve the right to contradict and disagree with myself. This gives me freedom to push my thinking, challenge my assumptions, and push the envelop. After all, I’m trying to remove a lens I’ve worn for the better part of my life!

Messy Scriptures #3 : Genesis 22

Scary picture, isn't it? Think about this incident from Isaac's perspective. "What on earth is dad doing? He's bound me, he's raising the knife! He's going to kill me?!"

I'm sure social services would have taken Isaac away from Abraham. Here is an abusive, mentally ill father, doing what God told him to do; sacrifice his son.

So why did God ask Abraham to do such a thing? Passages such as Psalm 44:21, Luke 16:15, Acts 15:8, Romans 8:27, 1 John 3:20 tell us that God knows our hearts. If God knows our hearts, why does he test Abraham? Wouldn't he already know what he appears to discover about Abraham? "I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me" (Genesis 22:12). What is the point of the test? Who is the test for?

I know that Hebrews 11:17-19 gives us some insight into this passage, but if we read it canonically (in the order in which it is written, without reading the New Testament back into the passage just yet), what image appears for us? There is no mention in this text that Abraham believed God would raise his son from the dead. It is clearly a test of Abraham and his willingness to obey God. Quite honestly, a canonical reading of Genesis to this point reveals a rather different picture of God than the classic philosophical-theological view. Perhaps more on this in another post.

How do we square this passage with the classic philosophical-theological understanding of who God is? Merciful, loving, omniscient, unchanging? Perhaps this is where Greg Boyd and open theism can help us:

If the classical understanding of foreknowledge is true, God’s statement “now I know” seems disingenuous. The meaning of God’s explanation for this knowledge—+dqo/since you have...”—is also obscured. Indeed, if the future is exhaustively settled there would be no point in his test of Abraham, because God would never have to find out anything.

Messy Scriptures #2 : Genesis 22

1 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, 'Abraham!'

'Here I am,' he replied.

2 Then God said, 'Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.'

Here in Genesis 22 we find the story of Abraham being asked of God to sacrifice Isaac to him.

This is a fascinating story. Let us read and think about this s-l-o-w-l-y. Evangelicals focus on the result of this story, that Abraham obeyed God and God blessed him. It is correct to focus on this as it is the point of the story. But let's stop and think about this s-l-o-w-l-y.

God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering. It is a rather problematic request, isn't it? Consider Deanna Laney:

Dr. Park Dietz said Deanna Laney believed God ordered her to kill her children last Mother’s Day weekend. “She struggled over whether to obey God or to selfishly keep her children,” Dietz testified.

Laney, a 39-year-old stay-at-home mother who homeschooled her children, has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to charges of capital murder and serious injury to a child in the deaths of 8-year-old Joshua and 6-year-old Luke and severe injury to then-14-month-old Aaron.

Dietz said that Laney, who is deeply religious, had a series of delusions on the day of the killings. He said she saw Aaron with a spear, then throwing a rock, then squeezing a frog and believed God was suggesting she should either stab, stone or strangle her children.

Laney at first resisted, but she felt she had to do what she perceived to be God’s will to prove her faith, he said.

There is no question that today Laney is at the least a really poor listener to God and at best mentally ill. But might God ask someone to sacrifice their children to him? He did it once before. Why not again?

Interestingly, Laney was said to struggle over whether to obey God or not and that at first she resisted. Our narrator in Genesis 22 does not give any hint as to whether or not Abraham struggled or resisted. Yet in Genesis 21 when Abraham sent Ishmael away, the narrator tells us that Abraham was distressed. Why not a narrative comment here in this distressing passage?

Would struggle or resistance on Abraham's behalf indicate disobedience?

Does the lack of struggle or resistance raise questions as to Abraham's love for his son?

Once again, we have stumbled upon a text that just doesn't work too well as a proof text for family values. But I'll keep reading. I'm sure it's in here someplace!

MP3tunes.com

Good looking new service to download music!

Read the TNIV Online Bible

Cool. Looking forward to diving into this new translation!

Messy Scriptures : Genesis 21

8 The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. 9 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, 10 and she said to Abraham, 'Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.'

11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. 12 But God said to him, 'Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. 13 I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring.'

Family values. They are thrown around today by all sorts of people. Many who use these words appeal to the Bible as the basis for family values. But if we read the Bible carefully, we will find that the Bible paints a rather distressing picture of "family values."

As quoted above, the story of Sarah having Hagar and Ishmael sent away cannot possibly be held up as a story stressing family values. Yet God counsels Abraham to do as Sarah requests!

Isn't this counsel the breaking up of a family? Isn't this counsel the separation of a young boy from his father? This can't be right! So much for Genesis 21 being a proof text for family values!

Don't misunderstand me. I'm all for the family. But Christians tend to argue from the Bible that the perfect family is one husband, one wife, 2.5 kids, and a dog. Yet we rarely encounter that kind of family in Scripture.

I would suggested that much of what is argued for as "family values" in America is "chronocentrism--our tendency to assume that the worldview we hold at the present time is the ultimately true worldview." (God at War, Boyd, p. 18).

Throughout Scripture we see many families and few of these families can be held up as models of American family values (1 husband, 1 wife, 2.5 kids, a dog).

Dr. Dobson's a "Wacky Evangelical"

Dr. Dobson has made more headlines last week attacking Sponge Bob. Here's some of Phil Vischer's, the creator of VeggieTales take on it.

I doubt if this specific incident will amount to anything more than another 'look at the wacky evangelicals' sidebar.

Here are Phil's thoughts concerning the video and whether it promotes homosexuality or not...

Do you think the We are Family video promotes homosexuality?

Sorry, I haven't seen it. I heard Ernie & Bert were standing very close, though so, you know … that's concerning.

Do you think that the website (and tolerance pledge) does?

Boy, that's a thorny one. Does pledging to "respect people whose … sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own" promote homosexuality? We're supposed to love everyone. I'm pretty sure that's biblical.

At the same time, we certainly can't endorse behavior that the Bible labels as sinful. So is "respecting" more like "loving," or more like "endorsing"? Are they encouraging grade school kids to accept homosexuality or to accept homosexuals? I'm not sure I'm qualified to parse that sentence.

And what's the inverse of that pledge? To disrespect people of differing sexual orientations? Jeepers, that doesn't sound biblical.

As far as I am concerned, Vischer does a great job of dissecting this whole issue.

Sadly, I believe that most of the church's response to this issue is not one of love but one of disrespect.

Like the song says, "They will know we are Christians by our disrespect, er...love!"

Church Structure and Leadership

Issues of structure apply to the church as well. Most churches have a constitution or bylaws which govern its structure, its officers, and basic operational schema. When a church’s bylaws are poorly conceived, or non-existent, watch-out! In such instances, when people can make up the rules as they go along, a steady stream of conflict and behind-the-scene power plays inevitably follow. One long-time minister who pastored such a church (with no bylaws) reflected, “those were the 20 most miserable years of my life.” Indeed, when an outside consultant was brought in to evaluate the conflict a subsequent pastor was experiencing at the same church, the consultant declared, “the most perfect pastor in the world could not have pastored this church.”

One of my churches is currently experiencing this. To complicate matters, the yoke relationship needs structure but the structure is being resisted because I think those in power at the one church recognize that they have much to loose if the yoke relationship and how the churches will get along with each other is clarified.

This is so utterly frustrating! Why can't we be about advancing God's kingdom instead of our own little kingdoms? Honestly, these little kingdoms don't amount to much! But we protect that turf like our lives depended on it!

Sadly, this dysfunction is really casting a dark shadow over these churches.