7.29.2005

TIME Magazine -- Reworking Work -- Jul. 25, 2005

The transition required a lot of deprogramming of old attitudes, and it produced a lot of pain. Some employees break down and cry in ROWE training sessions. 'People in the baby-boom generation realize what they gave up to get ahead in the workplace, and a lot of times it's their families. They realize that it doesn't have to be that way,' says Ressler, her eyes tearing up. In particular, men thank her and Thompson, who run the sessions, for giving them permission to spend more time with their families. 'They know now they can do it and not be judged,' says Thompson.

This article reminds me of a great talk I heard Andy Stanley give at a Youth Specialties National Youthworker Conference several years ago. Andy Stanley said something along these lines: "Tell me, who was the youth pastor at your church before you? Will there be a youth pastor at your church after you leave? Now tell me, who was your spouse's spouse before you? Who was your children's parent before you? Who will be their spouse or parent after you are gone? In ministry we ask God to take care of our families when we know we are robbing them of time, of us so we can accomplish the work of ministry, the work of God. Maybe we have this backwards. Shouldn't we be present and available to our families and trust God to get the work of His ministry done?"

Sounds like Best Buy is leading the way in helping people get their priorities straight! How can the church assist? How can the church meaningfully challenge the priorities of our culture?

Book Review: Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller


Let's get right to the point: I love this book! It is funny, insightful, powerful. Miller's honesty and authenticity are so refreshing. Run out and start reading it today if you haven't already!

Some of the highlights include Miller's thoughts on attending Reed College, attending a Unitarian church in Colorado Springs, living as a fundamentalist Christian for a summer, and wrestling with how to love others.

I feel that it is probably the best book for handing seeks who want to learn more about Christian spirituality but aren't interested in the church. There are so many folks in my life that I want to give this book to!

Here's a great quote for the church to keep in mind:

"A friend of mine, a young pastor who recently started a church, talks to me from time to time about the new face of church in America--about the postmodern church. He says the new church will be different from the old one, that we will be relevant to culture and the human struggle. I don't think any church has ever been relevant to culture, to the human struggle, unless it believed in Jesus and the power of His gospel. If the supposed new church believes in trendy music and cool Web pages, then it is not relevant to culture either. It is just another tool of Satan to get people to be passionate about nothing." (p. 111)

I think this quote resonates so much with me because it's true. I know it to be true through my experience. Churches out in the sticks struggle with being relevant. Actually most of the time we don't even struggle! We just aren't relevant. We don't play all the latest greatest music. We sing hymns with an organ. Sometimes we sing some "newer" praise songs like "Lord I Lift Your Name On High" and "Shine, Jesus, Shine" but we sing them with organ accompaniment! We don't have a website. We don't market ourselves. We are far from relevant to the culture.

Yet people come. Young and old. And they are growing. Many tell me they are growing more than ever before in their lives! Why? Because I believe in Jesus and the power of His gospel. What could be more relevant than that?

7.28.2005

spamgourmet - free disposable email addresses, spam blocker

This looks like a great tool. I have been using Mailblocks for several years but have wanted a spamblocker for my gmail account. Enter spamgourmet! Depending on how well it works, I may not have to renew my Mailblocks subscription this year.

7.21.2005

Google Maps - 115 Federal Street Pittsburgh, PA 15212


Where are the Colorado Rockies playing tonight? PNC Park. I love baseball and Google maps with the satellite feature makes it really fun to explore all the great ball parks!

Speaking of Faith | The Religious Roots of American Democracy | Krista's Reflection

If you get a chance to hear this program, it sounds like it will be excellent and timely. From this brief quote, it is interesting how the founding father's defined terms like happiness and how most Americans today define it.

A few years ago I came across this fascinating observation by the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville from his famous report of 1831, Democracy in America:

"Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions. I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith and religion, for who can search the human heart? But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society."

These days, there is a new discussion building in our culture — in both public and private spaces — about the role of religion in American life. As we began to prepare this program on the religious roots in American democracy, I wanted to probe something de Tocqueville saw that I find underrepresented in our contemporary dynamics: a religious sensibility in the origins of our national ideals that goes deeper than our modern debates, and transcends them.

I found a modern de Tocqueville in philosopher Jacob Needleman, and our conversation felt like an adventure. Needleman spent several years tracing the spiritual and intellectual content of the American founders' thought. Spirit and intellect, he says, always worked in concert in the formulation of American democracy and the writing of the documents that define American identity even today. Rights implied duties. Happiness was an inalienable right, but it was not synonymous with pleasure, with having or acquiring what one wants. It meant "well-being." It was linked with conscience. In the "idea of America," Needleman asserts provocatively, democracy is not just a set of laws and societal structures. It is also inner work.

Needleman enlarges the notion of America's founders to include important thinkers who helped form the virtues of our republic beyond revolution and constitution. So in this week's program, alongside Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, we have wonderful readings from Frederick Douglass and Walt Whitman. In the context of conversation with Needleman, I heard what each of them had to say with new interest and insight. I came away feeling that we can invoke the religious sensibility of the founders precisely as an antidote to the confusion and excesses of religion in American life today.


This serves to illustrate the need for careful hermenuetics. Whenever we are dealing with an historical text, we must seek to understand what the authors original intent was. We must define the words the way the authors did.

Perhaps we rely too much on reader response today.

The Matching Game update

Several days ago I posted the Matching Game quiz challenging players to match the church with the statement of faith. Here are the results. The correct answer was Willow Creek.




The Matching Game : Match the church with the statement of faith!
This statement of faith belongs to:
Willow Creek Community Church - Bill Hybels
3
Cedar Ridge Community Church - Brian McLaren
1
Saddleback Church - Rick Warren
2
Lakewood Church - Joel Olsteen
2
Thomas Road Baptist Church - Jerry Falwell
3
New Life Church - Ted Haggard
0
The Potter's House - T.D. Jakes
2
This Poll by hawkenstein
Click here to view current results

7.15.2005

The Constructive Curmudgeon

Dr. Groothuis from Denver Seminary is now blogging atThe Constructive Curmudgeon.

Reviews: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Christianity Today Movies


Charlie and the Chocolate Factory opens today. Here's part of a review from Christianity Today:
...it intrigued me to hear the new version of Dahl's book would be directed by Tim Burton and star Johnny Depp, two guys with a bit of a resumé in creepy, trippy, and weird. And so, I viewed Burton and Depp as the two biggest wild cards in whether this movie would be any good.

It turns out that the duo has each succeeded in creating a fable that is not creepy or trippy, but just possessing a gentle weirdness (just wait for the scene with the 'Small World' attraction) that is completely appropriate to Dahl's original book. In fact, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a charming, engrossing, and often laugh-out-loud funny fairy tale that captures the book's spirit while still marking its own territory.

Will it be a hit?

Out of Africa - Christianity Today Magazine


The power is shifting. The moral authority is shifting. This is a great article discussing the shift of power and authority in the church.
Philip Jenkins, in his groundbreaking The Next Christendom, wrote that a 'global perspective should make us think carefully before asserting 'what Christians believe' or 'how the church is changing.' All too often [such statements] refer only to what that ever-shrinking remnant of Western Christians and Catholics believe. Such assertions are outrageous today. … The era of Western Christianity has passed within our lifetimes, and the day of Southern Christianity is dawning.'

In the Anglican Communion, the third-largest Christian body in the world with more than 70 million adherents, there is no better representative of that shift than Nigerian Archbishop Peter Jasper Akinola.

Harry Beasts - Christianity and Harry Potter


The latest Harry Potter book goes on sale at midnight tonight. Thousands of young fans will line up. Media will cover the frenzy. And the debate among Christians will heat up once again. Here are some interesting quotes from John Granger's book Looking for God in Harry Potter as he takes a look at the animal symbols used in the books which point to Christian reality.
Does it seem odd that there are so many symbols of Christ? There is a big difference between symbols and allegorical figures. Allegories are stand-ins or story translations of a worldly character, quality, or event into an imaginative figure or story. There can be only one figure representing the other, consequently, or it's difficult to translate; I cannot have two Hitler figures if I'm writing an allegory of the Second World War, or the allegory fails.

Symbols, in contrast, can be stacked up. If I am telling a fantasy story with a Christian message, I can include characters and beasties and events that all point to the various qualities, actions, and promises of Christ. If the symbols correspond with these qualities, even if they are not consciously understood as Christ symbols, they open us up to an imaginative experience of those supernatural qualities. A variety of these symbols woven into a story that itself echoes the Great Story will powerfully stir the soul because the heart is made by God to be receptive to this message. Our soul radios are always tuned to the frequency of the message.

The Harry Potter stories, in their formulaic journeys that end every year with love's triumph over death in the presence of a Christ symbol, find their power and popularity in the resonance they create in our hearts. We connect with them because they point toward the Truth Myth that saves us. The gospel has rarely, if ever, been smuggled into the hearts and minds of readers so successfully and profoundly.

Sounds as though Granger is rather positive towards the books.

On the other hand, here's what the new pope apparently thinks of Harry Potter:
The Pope has said that the Harry Potter books "erode Christianity in the soul" of young people, a German writer claims.

Bavarian-based Roman Catholic Gabriele Kuby, who wrote a book criticising JK Rowling's blockbusters, said the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger made the comments in an exchange of letters two years ago.

In March 2003, Ratzinger wrote thanking her for sending him a copy of "your informative book". He said: "It is good that you are throwing light on Harry Potter, because these are subtle seductions that work imperceptibly, and because of that deeply, and erode Christianity in the soul before it can even grow properly."

What do you think?

7.07.2005

jason clark : As the bombs go off in london, we pray...


"As the bombs go off in london, we pray..."


Read the whole prayer here.

Jesus Creed: Post-Certainty

Excellent post from Scot McKnight on Emergent and truth
Therefore, what the Emergent Christian denies is not that there is truth but that our articulation of that truth is always limited. Truth is personal and therefore our knowledge of God as Person in Jesus Christ through the Spirit and the Church limits our grasp until the Eschaton. And, to compound the whole discussion, genuine truth is the story of God make known to us through Christ and the Spirit in the community where that story is performed in such a manner that humans can grasp the true story of the true gospel.

The Matching Game : Match the church with the statement of faith!

Can you match each church with it's statement of faith?

The sole basis of our belief is the Bible, which is uniquely God-inspired, without error, and the final authority on all matters on which it bears. As the Bible teaches, there is one God, eternally existing in three persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — each possessing all the attributes of Deity.

God created humans to have fellowship with Him, but they defied God by sinfully going their own way. As a result, we need God's saving grace to end our alienation from Him. Salvation comes only through God's saving grace — not human effort — and must be received personally by repentance and faith.

Jesus Christ, second Person of the Trinity, lived a sinless life on earth and voluntarily paid for our sin by dying on the cross as our substitute. This accomplishes salvation for all who receive grace by trusting in Him alone. He rose from the dead and is the only mediator between us and God. He will return to earth to consummate history.

The Holy Spirit draws sinners to Christ and equips believers for personal growth and service to the church. The church's role is to glorify God and serve those in need. At the end, everyone will experience bodily resurrection and the judgment. Those forgiven through Christ will enjoy eternal fellowship with God. For more details, please ask for our complete Statement of Faith at the information booth.




The Matching Game : Match the church with the statement of faith!
This statement of faith belongs to:
Willow Creek Community Church - Bill Hybels
Cedar Ridge Community Church - Brian McLaren
Saddleback Church - Rick Warren
Lakewood Church - Joel Olsteen
Thomas Road Baptist Church - Jerry Falwell
New Life Church - Ted Haggard
The Potter's House - T.D. Jakes
This Poll by hawkenstein
Click here to view results

7.06.2005

P.O.V. - Street Fight | PBS


Wow! Another great documentary on P.O.V. This one is just down right crazy! An excellent example of the old phrase "power corrupts!" Catch this if you can!

Wired News: Surviving the Digital TV Shift


Check out this quote from this article on digital TV:
Will people have to throw out their old TV sets when everything goes digital?

Not necessarily. Any TV set hooked up to cable or a satellite system is unaffected. However, any analog TV sets that use an antenna will no longer be able to receive programming over the air after the cut-off date -- unless it's hooked up to a cable or satellite system, or is set up with a digital converter. It's unclear how much those converters will cost when they become widely available at retail.

Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Connecticut) have already introduced a bill (.pdf) that would provide $468 million in subsidies for digital converters -- but only for low-income households.

We'd hate to have folks not have access to TV! I wonder how many books $468 million would buy? Or how many college educations for low-income households? If we are going to subsidize something for low-income households do we really think it should be digital converters for televisions?

7.05.2005

Christianity with Power by Charles H. Kraft


This book was published in 1989 but in my opinion it is extremely relevant to the discussion of the church today. In this work, Kraft shares his struggle to embrace a new worldview concerning miracles and a power ministry paradigm. He was skeptical at first but through cross-cultural missional experiences and classroom experiences with John Wimber as well as dialogue with Peter Wagner, Kraft overcame his reservations and has entered into Christianity with power.

I greatly appreciate this work. I too am often skeptical of much of Christianity that relies on power encounters. I struggle with actually believing that God desires to actually really heal people today. My western evangelical worldview has natural scientific explanations for things. I do not look for the spiritual reasons behind everyday occurances.

Further, I look to modern western solutions to my ills: when I am sick I go to the doctor, or take a drug; when I am emotionally troubled I see a psychologist. Prayer is often a last resort, when the other common sense remedies have failed to work.

Kraft points out that the western worldview is far different then the one of the Hebrews in Scripture. That doesn't make my worldview wrong but it does lead to some unique weaknesses.

As to the timeliness of this book, I kept feeling that this book is significant concerning the worldview shift that is occuring for many within our culture and in evangelicalism. The book autobiographically recounts much of Kraft's worldview transformation and then analyzes worldviews and transitions in worldviews from an anthropological standpoint (Kraft is professor of anthropology and intercultural communication at Fuller).

One of my favorite chapters in the book is called The "What We Think We Know" Problem. Here are some great quotes from this chapter (these appear especially relevant in light of the emerging church discussion):
"It is not so much what we don't know, but what we think we know that obstructs our vision", says Harvard theologian Krister Stendahl. This piece of wisdom has certainly described accurately quite a number of situations in human history. It also points ou the basic problem in a large number of conflicts that have taken place in the history of Christianity. Every time there is renewal, for example, the "what we think we know" problem arises. Typically, the traditionalists who think they know how God behaves become the opponents of the new things God wants to do...

The problem seems to be a human tendency to make rules for God. We learn certain things about how he works, arrive at the principles we think to be appropriate, and then impose those principles on those who seek to follow him as if God himself had endorsed them. We then virtually forbid him to work in any other way...

God simply refuses to be bound by "what we think we know," even if that knowledge is about him. For he knows the severe limitations of that knowledge. It is always constrained by our humanity and derived from our interpretations of but a small selection of God's acts. And all of those interpretations are influenced by our worldview, our experience, our predisposition, our sin, and all our other human limitations...

Our worldview paradigms of perspectives are precious to us. They are like our language, having been passed on to us by people in whom we have trusted over the years. So our first reaction is ordinarily to defend and protect them when they are challenged. This is especially true if we suspect that by changing a certain paradigm, we may run afoul of the opinions of our group. The potential of a loss of prestige is usually sufficient to keep us in line, especially if we are feeling socially insecure.

These thoughts really resonated with me as I continue to wrestle with the ongoing emerging church discussion. It causes me to wonder...how much of the controversy concerns truth, how much concerns the "what we think we know" problem, and how much concerns fear in changing a worldview?

Brian McLaren: D.A. Carson's book and responses


Interested in the ongoing controversy surrounding Brian McLaren and his work? Check out this quick response pointing you to several articles that critique Dr. D.A. Carson's book. Here's a quote from McLaren's post:
D. A. Carson has written a critical review of emergent, and of my work in particular. Dr. Al Mohler has effusively praised Carson's book in reviews and articles of his own. Both reviews are grossly inaccurate and they misrepresent and misjudge my writings, thinking, and beliefs.

7.02.2005

The Observer | UK News | Brainstorms turn to showers

The thought police strike again! And to think people get paid to do this!
David Brent would never approve. 'Brainstorming', the buzz term used by executives to generate ideas among their staff, has been deemed politically incorrect by civil servants because it is thought to be offensive to people with brain disorders.

Instead staff at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) in Belfast will use the term 'thought-showers' when they get together to think creatively. A spokeswoman said: 'The DETI does not use the term brainstorming on its training courses on the grounds that it may be deemed pejorative.'

7.01.2005

U.S. Churches' Recognition of Independence Day Varies Widely - Christianity Today Magazine


What is the church to do with Independence Day? Memorial Day? I've been thinking alot about this lately. Here's a quote from a Christianity Today article:
First Baptist Church in Euless, Texas, prides itself on its fiercely patriotic approach to the Fourth of July.

Last year, Marines rappelled into the sanctuary, church members in uniform stuck rifles and helmets into a Styrofoam grave site made by a Broadway set designer, and indoor fireworks exploded over a packed house in back-to-back services.

'It's just a big patriotic, feel-good moment,' said Robert Elkins, the church's music director.

First Covenant Church in Oakland, Calif., takes a different approach, allowing a salute to veterans but steering clear of any overtly patriotic messages. 'We want to be as inclusive as possible for all worshippers, whether they're red or blue,' said music director David Leestma.

Independence Day can be delicate for houses of worship. Many worshippers expect some recognition of the holiday, but appearing too nationalistic can alienate others who see God-and-country celebrations as political endorsements.

So what do you think churches should do?

The Mayberry Driven Church (Podcast)


This looks like a very promising podcast blog that I plan on paying a lot of attention to as I minister in Mayberry as well!
This website is for people in ministry who just need to be real and shed the "I AM PREFECT" image that we all get trapped into living. It's about ministry when your not Saddleback and you find yourself up a Willow Creek.


Also check out the George Vlosich III Etch-a-Sketch Art Gallery where I found the Mayberry pic.

MethodX | The Heavenly Banquet


Over the past few days I have been struck with the power of the Word of God. I am currently reading an excellent book called Blue Like Jazz which recounts several people coming to know God through reading the Bible.

God is the hound of heaven who is after us, relentlessly pursuing us. He shows up in the most amazing and unexpected places. Here's a quote from a great article demonstrating how God showed up through the Bible:
God was working with each person during that retreat. Both campers and staff, we were all touched by God's spirit through the words of scripture, through the hugs and smiles and words of one another, through the experiences of the week that affirmed life and love for all of God's people.