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Yesterday, I left WVA and drove to the airport to head down to Daluth, GA for Catalyst conference. (www.catalystconference.com) Andy Stanley just spoke...amazing.
The next session is getting ready to start. More posts later.
good stuff! The
Have you ever had an experience of reading where words ring true, each one like a drop of water falling into parched soil bringing renewal, moisture, sustenance? This was my experience this morning as I work to finish Dan Allender's To Be Told."...seldom do we permit any blessing to remain as an undeserving gift from God. Instead, we assume that we did something to earn it, and we hold on to it as if we deserve it...God's people presume upon the blessing of God, which leads to the temptation to possess his gift as a deserved necessity." (p. 169)I appreciate Allender's insight. How often do I see the blessings in my life as some deserved gift because of my piety or my service or my calling or my [insert work here] rather than the unmerited blessing of God. When I do that it cheapens God's mercy and grace, and I attempt to put myself in a position of merit or goodness that I neither am nor could be.
"Entering the narrative before God means, first, we must enter prayer as a struggle. We do not merely utter a string of words according to a prescribed sequence such as adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. Of course prayer can be orderly and organized. But the prayer that pleads for exposure and engagement throws our desperation at God's feet and wrestles naked with him for a new name. This is prayer that heals." (p. 170)I find myself from time to time trying to engage God in prayer as if prayer were like eating dinner in a super-fancy restaurant; the words are like the forks, and you have to use the right ones for the right request, or course. And that if one has poor table manners then somehow it doesn't take. I appreciate the earthiness of the image of prayer as being like Jacob's wrestling match. Prayer is an engagement, it is give and take, move and counter-move, it is relationship. Yet I am tempted to boil this rich experience down to a simple acronym or a formula. Yes those things are helpful as guides, so long as they aid the relationship that is the end of all prayer - the relationship between Creator and created.
Well, not really. But Qipit a cool new service allows it to be one. Using your mobile phone you can take a picture of a whiteboard, handwritten notes, or printed material. Send the picture to Qipit and share it with others as a PDF. How cool is that?
By Brant Hansen1) Complexify the message
Right now, it's so simple, it can pass from one to the next, and be easily grasped by the uneducated, the young -- everyone. This is dangerous, because it's highly contagious, and people on the street feel capable of enlisting others in the cause.
2) Construct a less "flat", more hierarchical structure
Currently, small, underground groups can move nimbly and autonomously, complicating efforts to thwart them. A more regimented, stratified approach, where some members are left thinking, "I can't know enough to do anything" would bring the movement to a halt.
3) Foster "expert" culture, and barriers to entry to the expert class
Promote the idea that the message is not only highly complex, but only some can truly understand it. Construct extensive barriers to entry to the presumed expert class. Promote idea that cells lacking a certified member of expert class, it is not equipped to be activated.
4) Focus on knowledge, rather than doing
Complexification and expert-class development will make cells spend immense amounts of time studying the work, even debating theories of the work, rather than doing it. Better yet...
5) Equate STUDYING the work with the work itself
The cells are called to ACT, of course. But if we can convince operatives that the work, itself, is in trying to understand the complexity of the work? They'll be effectively neutered. We need to get them to spend large amounts of time in study, gathering to study, believing they don't know enough, hiring new experts to teach them again and again, and attending teaching events.
They'll actually believe they're doing their work when they attend events held by experts. This will render the cell, and the whole movement, harmless! Convince them that the most radicalized, militant among them are merely called to bring other non-activated members to the cell events.
6) Sabotage cell multiplication
VERY important! Cells that operate under simple principles, with motivated operatives, devoted to multiplication? Very, very dangerous, fast-growing, and pop-culture endangering. We must stop this in its tracks, and this is done in multiple ways:
A) Foster egos and small-time celebrity. By convincing operatives to set up individual fiefdoms, fewer autonomous cells will be activated. Rather, the emphasis will be on building larger individual cells with numerous unactivated members.
B) Make the basic structure highly difficult to replicate. Al-Qaeda cells currently are, by necessity, simply-structured and easily replicated. Propagate idea that for cells to begin, planning, experts and capital must be simultaneously accumulated. Expert motivational speakers will be necessary, plus paid staff with highly specific training and talents. Operatives will see massively "successful" large cells, and attempt to duplicate them, with very limited success because of the huge inputs required. This will greatly inhibit growth.
C) Convince philosophically-aligned, but non-active, members to choose from among most entertaining, high quality, cells that offer services for them. Not only will this engender a harmless, internal focus, it will require IMMENSE amounts of resources and energy.
7) Make operatives really, really busy.
Replace simple, animating mission with lengthy lists, charts, and programs for cell maintanance. Convince them that this institutional maintenance is, actually, the mission, itself.
This will leave them will no actual time for conducting actual mission.
8) Get Al-Qaeda to seek governmental approval.
Offer tax incentives if necessary. The larger cells, requiring large edifices, will also require tremendous amounts of capital. This will also allow a measure of control, to threaten the cell's tax status, thereby threatening funds for internal programs, when necessary.
Better: They'll consider actual operational cells that exist without this governmental approval to be, themselves, invalid!
9) Co-opt Al-Qaeda with the larger culture.
Once members are convinced that cell maintenance and study are actually their "mission", the rest of their lives can be harmlessly integrated with the culture at large. They'll be indistinguishable from non-members, and, because of their new understanding of "mission", effectively equivalent to non-members.
10) Convince members to wear Al-Qaeda t-shirts with funny sayings and stuff.
Mission accomplished.
It'll work to thwart an evil message. It even works with the good ones.
This past weekend we enjoyed an evening of camping, hot dogs, s'mores and great campfire conversations with some friends from Richmond at Lake Anna State Park (pictured above). We had a great time.
Lovely signage along the bike trail...
While I have not been as consistent at posting this summer, I tried to be a bit more consistent in my reading. So over the next few days, I will give summaries, recommendations, and applications for some of the non-fiction books I read this summer.
wrestle with.
I am blogging from my Treo and currently surrounded by all ages of folks, many of whom are dressed up like characters from the book.
I can't believe I'm doing this...
This evening as I was walking the dog I saw different scenes that were an interesting contrast related to community.
For our sixth anniversary (yes Jill has put up with me for over half a decade!) Jill and I bought a "vacation" home as gift to ourselves. Yep that's right, we shelled out the bucks to purchase a spacious, one-room tent!Christian community is like the christian's sanctification. It is the
gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of
our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and
trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the
christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so
too, the christian community has not been given to us by God for us to
be constantly taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily
receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will
fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases.
And then further down the page:
Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is
rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may
participate.
Whoa! This really challenges the way I have thought about christian
community, particularly as it applies to the local church. It seems
that much thought about church culture is that the tone, the feel, the
mood, the culture is determined by the church leadership and church
membership. But according to Bonhoeffer, our role is to participate
in the christian community God has placed us in - for it is a gift of
God that we are to be thankful for.
I'll need to ponder this for awhile...hmmm....
I finished Scot McKnight's The Jesus Creed and have now picked up Dietrich BonHoeffer's Life Together. Wow! I am only 26 pages into it and I am blown away by what he has to say about Christian community. While I cannot replicate the wisdom he shares about Christian community, here are three quotes and reflections from the first 26 pages:...the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life, but in the thick of foes. There is commission in his work. (p.17)Exactly. We are commissioned to go out into the world (Matthew 28:19-20). I don't know that I would use the word foes to describe the relationships with others, but the sentiment is one I resonate with - We leave the comfort and safety of our Christian bubbles to engage the world around us.
Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this...We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ. (p. 21)While we are called to go out into the world, we are also called to be in fellowship together, whether for a few minutes, an hour, whatever. In that time we find encouragement. For the goal of Christian community (according to Bonhoeffer) is to meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation. It is Jesus that we see or seek in others and that others see and seek in us when we gather.
...the Christian is the man who no longer seeks his salvation, his deliverance, his justification in himself, but in Jesus Christ alone. (p. 21-22)I find in Bonhoeffer a great relenquishement of self. In that the focus is no longer on self, but in the "Word of God in Jesus Christ." For instance, conviction or righteousness comes from Jesus - through the word of God. It meets us where we are. And when others see us, it is Jesus they see and seek.
Well, I am in my 3rd week of having my sermon written by Tuesday. What a liberating feeling. It is not a final draft by Tuesday, but at the very least it is a manuscript that can be shaped and molded for the rest of the week.
Check out this photo essay from Time magazine. It shows 15 families from around the world and what they eat in a week. It also includes cost of the food for the week. Really, really eye-opening. It makes me curious about what I eat in a week and how that compares with the 15 families in the essay.
Now this leads me to this: Sin is whatever impedes the flow of human life and our world into that everflowing perichoretic loving dance within God. Whatever resists it; whatever works against it; whatever breaks down human union with God; whatever distorts the world’s design to participate in that dance is sin. This also means that whatever impedes proper love between humans and humans or between humans and this world is also sin. The law comes in merely to clarify where love is breaking down. Defining sin by ignoring love misses what sin really is.You can read the entire post here.
posted from my handheld device.
UPDATE: The gentleman in the picture is Tom "Goose" Gilbert (see his stats here) - he shattered the world record which was 5.23 lbs. I am not making this up - look here.
This morning I had the opportunity to spend a couple of hours reading at a local coffee shop (not the one pictured to the left.) What a treat! 
Today was homecoming at RUMC. It was my first...ever. Apparently, homecoming is a small, rural church phenomenon. The purpose of homecoming is to invite all the people who used to live in the community back to their home church for a time of celebration and reconnection. It is standard to have a former pastor preach the service.
Have you ever had a bad dream that woke you in the wee hours of the morning, and that just sat with you? The awful feelings that it created won't be evicted from the residence of your thoughts. Rather they stay and make themselves at home.
I have been drooling over smart phones for a long time now. (I mean who wouldn't want a pda and a phone all in one, right...right?) Everywhere I look it seems as if people have them: airports, coffee shops, stores, church...everywhere! I've talk to people who have them and ask them if they like them, I read about them, I think I even had a dream about them once . At least once a month I was going on-line and pricing them. (My OCD tendencies are starting to show...)
Have you heard the analogy of the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about? You know, where the elephant stands for some big issue that everyone sees, but no one wants to acknowledge for one reason or another.
I just finished reading Rob Bell's latest book, Sex God. It was interesting and a different way of looking at sexuality, humanity, and God. I appreciate his hopeful theology, use of story, and historical perspective to illuminate concepts and ideas.
You’re St. Justin Martyr! You have a positive and hopeful attitude toward the world. You think that nature, history, and even the pagan philosophers were often guided by God in preparation for the Advent of the Christ. You find “seeds of the Word” in unexpected places. You’re patient and willing to explain the faith to unbelievers. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers! |
Jill and I are in Richmond for the Monument Ave 10K. Its the first race of the season for either of us. It looks like it should be great weather. Jill has been a champ with the training. I expect her to have a great race. My training has been so-so. Not as consistent as I would have liked. Either way its fun to be in Richmond even if it is a brief trip. I hope to be able to report good news in my next post about the results!
