Finding our voices - maybe

At my fairly "normal" church (ARP, conservative Presbyterian), I've been trying to describe and explain emerging(-missional) churches [links updated] to a Sunday School class of about 50 people whose ages range from teens to 90s. It's been -ah- enlightening for all, and definitely a first for me. I'll try to post the slides as soon as I work through the copyright details.

The first week (Dec. 3) I successfully deferred discussion of the big "P" word, to focus on "people rethinking church" (regardless of self-consciously philosophical concerns). I borrowed liberally from Messrs. McKnight, Bolger and Gibbs, Baker, and especially Jones; but did add some fun things like a termite mound (emergent behavior), Gordon Cosby info [emerging church in 1947?], and "Babe, the postmodern pig"). Also threw in pictures of Upstream Communities, Vaux, Vintage Faith, Solomon's Porch, Grace, and local group The Common Table. So far so good; apparently a couple of people were concerned that we were going to start worshipping with parachutes but OK.

The second week (Dec. 10) we took a deep breath and looked at postmodernity and how to engage it as Christians. I borrowed from Wright, McLaren, Jones (again), and Rollins; and threw in some fun artifacts from Schultz, Launer, Ikon, and timetoturn. Unfortunately, I only got about halfway through my talk because a few folks had a strong aversion to the whole notion of skepticism. (And I didn't even get to the hard part [from Rollins], about how some skepticism about our own notions might be valuable!) So in closing, I skipped ahead to my favorite Peanuts cartoon ever (displayed here), explained the view that God is bigger than anything we could ever describe or imagine, ... and wished everyone a good week. To be continued.

Pete Rollins @ Emergent Baltimore

Spent a delightful evening Nov. 20 with Peter Rollins (in town on a book tour) and 15 or 20 Emergent Baltimore types (including a middle-aged, bald introvert with a small Buddha belly who identified himself as "Brian, Pete's driver"). Pete R. talked a mile a minute in a delightful accent that made "doubt" rhyme with "light." He wove together a number of points from his book, and some additional thoughts and jokes, in what I thought was pure free-association until he paused to check his notes about 20 minutes in.
Here are a few notable themes (if you've read his book these will be familiar):
- Powerlessness. He used this joke to evoke the risk of mixing the Christian message with an apologetic of power and fear and violence. Said we needed to avoid these in our message, but without letting it get anemic.
- Hypernymity (the other extreme from anonymity). He contrasted the Cartesian view, in which God is revealed and present, with Anselm's view of God as "something greater than can be thought," whom we can receive but never conceive.
- Conceptual idolatry. He likened Meister Eckhart's "God rid me of God" with Nietszche's "God is dead," which he suggested could be read as the death of one's concept of God.

Pete also talked about Ikon, the group he leads in Belfast, and showed some pictures. He described their "Last Supper" and "Evangelism" projects, their recent "Fundamentalism" service, and their new Wiki-based website. (all the more powerless to become?)

I had my book with me, so I asked him if he did autographs. He seemed willing but pretty reluctant so I changed the subject. He seemed to enjoy playing with little Timo as we spoke. (Yep, brought a baby to a theo/philosophy lecture...)

Browsing around the Ikon Website this weekend, I enjoyed the playful intro to their principles (iconic, apocalyptic, heretical, emerging, and failing -- which may sound pretty unsafe at first glance but don't let that fool you). I was also tickled to see that they used Michael Knott's Screaming Brittle Siren in last week's service. Maybe my "emerging journey" was already underway back in 1993 (?) when I fell head-over-heels for this CD myself.

One for the scrapbook

Timo (now 4 1/2 mos.) was parked next to the kitchen sink the other day, watching me wash dishes. Predictably, the dishes got boring, esp. after I found the funny glasses in one pile of clutter, and the camera in another. This was the best take of about 10. Still can't decide on a caption.

Better late than never: John Franke @ Emergent Baltimore

I've been meaning to comment on John Franke's Oct. 18 dinner talk in Ellicott City. Surprisingly, it appears no-one else has (?) so maybe this is still of interest. Dr. F. said a lot of good things; but what stood out for me was an interpretation of I Cor. 12 applied to the universal church, not just a local congregation -- e.g., the Presbyterians cannot say to the Baptists, "I don't need you," etc. (As Randy would say, "Some Assemblies of God Required.") But then Dr. F. took a further step, and applied those verses to the "emerging conversation" as well, challenging us to use our peculiar insights &c. to be a blessing to more traditional churches, rather than just going our separate ways. He said it better, of course.
Next speaker: Pete Rollins. I hope to finish reading his dense little book in time.

A preview?

... Wherein we outline some of the posts that will appear here soon:
- Things to fix
- John Franke and I Cor. 12
- Looking back at Crave, V.1
- "Head story" du jour: Charles, the nerdy Cabbage
- Impressions of Pete Rollins' book
- Reflections on Ecclesiastes and meaninglessness
- Cleverest song lyrics EVER
Posting this is of course meant to force a more frequent blogging habit -- rats, only three posts in October! (Now 4 :-) Well, after enjoying all these great blogs (and many more), at least I'm giving back a little. It's a start.

The Christians who don't do anything

I"m still chewing on the last part of Matthew 7, in which Jesus gives the parable of the wise and foolish builders. Funny, in all the times I'd heard this, until recently I'd missed what the "rock" represented. Jesus says, "everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." So sure, "build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ," as the Sunday school song says; but more specifically, the "foundation" emphasized here is not my knowledge of him (or about him), or his faithfulness to me, etc.; but whether and how I live out his words (esp. the sermon on the mount, Matthew 5-7). I guess it makes sense: the things I feel surest of are those I've acted on in word or deed. Anyway, in reading this parable to Diesel at bedtime a few days ago, I suddenly thought of the Veggie Tales Pirates: they do none of the things pirates do so are they really pirates? Slowly a spoof started to form in my mind...

Chorus:
We are the Christians Who Don't Do Anything!
We're just chosen to lie around.
And if you ask us to do anything, we'll just tell you:
We don't do anything.

Well I space out in my small group and I tend to shrug off scripture,
and I've never prayed in tongues, in fact I rarely pray at all,
but I read books on theology and wonder 'bout the rapture
and debate predestination and the fall.

(Chorus)

And I never feed the hungry and I never preach in taverns
and I've never emulated St. Augustin or St. Paul,
Yet my favorite occupation is to say "you're all just moderns"
and debate predestination and the fall.

(Chorus)

I don't trust denominations; sometimes I'd like to be Amish
But I've never gone two days without a Skype IP phone call
So I'd better stay the course and keep the status quo I cherish
And debate predestination and the fall.
= = = = = = = = = =

Obviously a work in progress. I'm no poet but such is the impact of blogging...

Now that's an exotic lamp

Upon reading news of a meteorite discovered in Kansas weighing 154 lbs., something about it sounded familiar. Sure enough, in recent online furniture shopping I'd seen a reproduction Arco Lamp, whose base (ostensibly granite but who knows??) weighed exactly ... 154 lbs. Coincidence?

People in glass houses

- by Madeleine L'Engle

I build my house of shining glass
of crystal
prisms
light, clear,
delicate.
The wind blows
Sets my rooms to singing.
The sun's bright rays
are not held back
but pour
their radiance through the rooms
in sparkles of delight.

And what, you ask, of rain
that leaves blurred muddy streaks
across translucent purity?
What, you ask,
of the throwers of stones?

Glass shatters,
breaks,
sharp fragments pierce my flesh,
darken with blood.
The wind tinkles brittle splinters
of shivered crystal.
The stones crash through.

But never mind.
My house
My lovely shining
fragile broken house
is filled with flowers
and founded on a rock.
--------------
(I'd typed this up but never got to use this in our last Crave [related to Matthew 7:24-27] so here it is.)

An allegory...

... representing ... ah... I'm not yet sure what. I've never before thought of a movie as "mysterious" -- but that was my strongest impression of "Gerry". Other adjectives include dark, frightening, slow, repetitive, slow, haunting, luminous, odd, preposterous, challenging ... Obviously (to this discriminating viewer!) the surface story isn't really the point. But while puzzling over deeper meanings, I enjoyed stunning desert vistas (a killer app for HDTV... I would presume) and breathtaking music (Arvo Part's "Alina"; that's actually how I learned of this movie). Parts of it reminded me of Koyaanisqatsi; but it's much more demanding of the viewer. Funny, its ratings at both imdb and amazon are right in the middle -- half of viewers think it's among the best movies ever, and the other half found it an insulting waste of time. (Kind of like Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music.)

Logs, Hogs, & Dogs

All that time spent building the montage to your left from this image and that one in The GIMP..! Neither the image nor the title (above) were polished or -ah- subtle; but each got a laugh in my talk at Crave this afternoon (on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, of course). We considered Jesus' fairly one-sided words about judgmentalism (he never gives an out, an "on the other hand" message to relieve the tension); and we reflected on how we deal with people different from ourselves in their temperament, theology, politics, age, culture, etc. We wrote on wood planks the things that blinded / impeded us, ... then nailed the two pieces together to form a cross. (A bit too "clever" perhaps, but I thought of it a couple days ago & couldn't resist.) Jenny provided a perfect Celtic music mix - barely there if you weren't paying attention, stunning if you were. Now if only we could persuade more people to come.

The next level

This month feels like the next level in a videogame: stuff's whizzing by too fast for my reaction times. (Life doesn't always wait till you've mastered one level before you move up to the next.) So, the pool has turned green (again) for lack of chlorine, the grass is brown from lack of nutrients, my eyes are red from lack of sleep, the car's "maintenance required" light has stopped flashing orange, ... and the to-do list just keeps getting longer.

Luckily there's little Timo (now almost 8 weeks old!) to blame it all on.

Not much of a story

Oh yeah: "what happened?" you ask [about yesterday's post]. The story is boring: he was bouncing around on a bed and hit a bookcase. At the moment he looked like a prize fighter, with blood streaming down his left cheek.I didn't think to take THAT picture; sorry.

Both blood and tears stopped flowing within 5 minutes; but it was decided that an ER visit would be wise. So, for a couple of glorious hours, this middle child had his father's exclusive attention (and tasted several 100-yr shelf-life treats from the vending machines in the ER waiting area).

Diesel keeps us in stitches

Diesel's 6 stitches didn't bother him for long... That eyebrow turned bright colors by week's end though.



...And he keeps on truckin'...