Wednesday, December 10, 2003
So the ABC special that was shot this summer is airing this week and last around the country. It is called The Changing Face of Worship. Here in Minneapolis it is on the local ABC affiliate on Sunday morning at 6 AM. Now we have hit the prime time for all the convenient store worker and security guards of the world. We are going to recorded it and watch it with a bunch of SP people at our house at 10:30.
I got a copy of it in the mail today and watched it just a few minutes ago.
It is pretty good, especially for the audience that watches TV at 6 AM.
It does a really fair job of covering the churches, but there is such a disparity in the churches that it is a bit hard to see how they all relate.
The main point of the whole thing I have a really hard time with though. They repeat it a few times in the show. It is that classic understanding of the role of the church where “The message doesn’t change, just the methods of delivering it”.
In many ways I think that what we are doing, and some others who we highlighted as well, is not at all the same old message, with new packaging, but a pursuit of a Gospel of Jesus that is not the typical 20th century North American version (or the tiered old 16th century version of reformed thinking). I know that most people who use such phrases mean that they are not doing away with Jesus, but instead it sounds like it is the same “Jesus is my friend”, or “you suck and lucky God saved you by killing his kid” (for heaven sake, Mark Driscoll says that very thing, well almost – he does have the gall to brag about telling people they suck – and has the gall to say that is the message of Jesus) or and perhaps even more insidious that “we are so sure of how we understand God that we simply have to figure our how to package it for you” approach of evangelism.
I hope our part comes through as an attempt to try to indwell the good news of God in our day just the way Jesus indwelled the good news in his. But that doesn’t mean the same old atonement based, Jesus as the starter of the Christian faith thing that so many understand as the message, that never changes.
But then again I am not sure we are going to change the world by clearly telling our story to Sandy at the 7-11. Or maybe…
I got a copy of it in the mail today and watched it just a few minutes ago.
It is pretty good, especially for the audience that watches TV at 6 AM.
It does a really fair job of covering the churches, but there is such a disparity in the churches that it is a bit hard to see how they all relate.
The main point of the whole thing I have a really hard time with though. They repeat it a few times in the show. It is that classic understanding of the role of the church where “The message doesn’t change, just the methods of delivering it”.
In many ways I think that what we are doing, and some others who we highlighted as well, is not at all the same old message, with new packaging, but a pursuit of a Gospel of Jesus that is not the typical 20th century North American version (or the tiered old 16th century version of reformed thinking). I know that most people who use such phrases mean that they are not doing away with Jesus, but instead it sounds like it is the same “Jesus is my friend”, or “you suck and lucky God saved you by killing his kid” (for heaven sake, Mark Driscoll says that very thing, well almost – he does have the gall to brag about telling people they suck – and has the gall to say that is the message of Jesus) or and perhaps even more insidious that “we are so sure of how we understand God that we simply have to figure our how to package it for you” approach of evangelism.
I hope our part comes through as an attempt to try to indwell the good news of God in our day just the way Jesus indwelled the good news in his. But that doesn’t mean the same old atonement based, Jesus as the starter of the Christian faith thing that so many understand as the message, that never changes.
But then again I am not sure we are going to change the world by clearly telling our story to Sandy at the 7-11. Or maybe…
Our family is going to Maui, Hawaii January 19th for a vacation. We will be going with the Toy’s. So I am going to start a count down here, not to rub it in that we are going and none of you are, well I guess that is exactly what it is. Just kidding, sort of. :) But it is the 40 day point so it has that Biblical feel to it and makes this feel more like a pilgrimage. But it isn't it is just a vacation. Unless of course that is a type of pilgrimage.
But anyway...
We leave in 40 days.
But anyway...
We leave in 40 days.
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
So I once again have fallen behind in blogging. So here is a really long make-up post.
Last week was a busy one. I was in Nashville with a bunch of friends, Mark Scandrette, Thom Olson, Mark Oestreicher, Jeanie Stevens, Greg Warner.
I also hooked up with some new friends who live in Nashville, Denise, Peter, and Penny. Then I met a bunch of new friends.
But I was not just hanging with friends. The main reason for the trip was for a planning meeting for the emergent conventions. We did some great planning and I really feel good about the events. I will see if Mark can send me some pictures to post.
I also met with Peter York and Denise George, two of my Nashville friends. They work with Sparrow records and we are kicking around an idea of having a song writers event to help facilitate new content in worship music. I am really excited about the possibility of this.
Then Greg, Thom, Mark S. and I made the decision to go ahead with the idea of emergent partnering on taking over FaithWorks magazine.
We have the really great idea of how this will go. I will tell more in future blogs when we have all of our stuff together. It will be soon – we hope to have the first issue out in March.
So there is classic Minnesota winter storm warning tonight, so we cancelled the Bible Discussion Group and I am home. Taylor and I just got home from his first basketball game of the season.
I am waiting to watch 24, but I want to wait until it has recorded so I can fast forward through the commercials.
On the health front, I started on a homeopathic today – Sulfur, for those who know about homeopathic I took five little tablets, three times in a 24 hour period.
And on an unrelated note – am in the middle of a patch test to see if I have allergies – I have this unrelenting dermatitis on my hand. So now my back itches and I am all smelly from not taking a shower for two day. What a glorious life!
I have been doing some thinking about a book I want to write – now that I am an author and all I have to think about such things J
Here is my first pass at an idea – I did this on the plane heading to Nashville,
Living Rhythm – An Invitation to Life in Harmony With God
Premise – There is a way of life that is in harmony with God that extends to all areas of our lives.
We are called not only to act Christianly in what we do, but to have the very essence of what we do be in harmony with God.
Our call is to arrange our lives so we are living in a way that creates what God creates and removes that which God removes.
We are called to a life that is connected to God in all things and connected to all things.
The most basic description of God in the Bible comes from Deuteronomy 6 – Hear of Israel the Lord you God is one�. This is referred to by Jesus as well. The call here is that God is one with all that is. This removes the notion of a sacred and secular life. We are not called to live religious lives that counter balance our secular life. We are called to live a whole life in rhythm with God.
The activity of God has always included creating and re-creating. We are invited to be agents of the kingdom of God by doing those very things that God is about. God’s economy includes dependence upon his creation working in harmony with God. This is not simply a benefit to our lives, it may very well be the chief end of humanity.
This sits at the center of Jesus’ call for people to join the Kingdom of God.
What does it mean to live in the kingdom of God in the 21st century world. We live a different world that that of the Bible characters including Jesus, so what does it mean to live whole lives in rhythm with God in our world?
The thesis of the book is built on the notion that through the activities of God we find our way of behaving. This is to look at God though the actions of God and not primarily through the character of God.
The call will be for people to arrange their lives and action to be in harmony with God’s life and action and not primarily focused on our characters transformed more in the likeness of God.
The phrase “Christ-like� will be played with to bring out the doing what Jesus did aspect. The call of Jesus to live like those created in the image of God will be understood around action and not character.
The Leviticus and Deuteronical call is based on God doing particular things that then implicate God’s followers to do particular things.
Care will be given to make a distinction of from a “works based� salvation to a this is how we are to live as those seeking to be in rhythm with God.
Because God is this way, we ought to be this way – be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect – is the essence.
Rhythm with God in life will replace belief in God as the goal of a Christian life. Belief is a means to that end – life lived in rhythm with God. Not the other way around.
This is what God does, and this is how we can join God in that kind of work in our world. For an agrarian society the idea that God was a shepherd who cared for his sheep was easily understood and made sense as to how they should care for their sheep. What does that look like in our industrialized, technological world?
Our job of following God is to keep aware of what God is doing and join into it.
Jesus institution of Foot Washing has this feel. What I have done for you, do for one another.
Chapters will include real life stories of people who are living in the rhythm of God from around the world. Each chapter will have a description of why we ought to be in rhythm with God in this area and real stories of what that looks like.
Ie.- The story of the guy at church one night who is an insurance claims adjuster and did not see how his job was in the activity of what God does in the world.
This book will have a very practical an compelling feel to it. Ideal for churches, individuals and small groups seeking to live more harmonious lives.
10 chapters long with workable material at the end of each chapter.
Other books like it:
Purpose Driven Life
Experiencing God
Chapters –
1- A new world opportunity
This chapter will show the importance and wonderful opportunities of an understanding of an invitation, re-creative theology.
The differences in the world we live in and the world Jesus lived in. Discussion of the changing world over time and the constant faithful response of followers of God
2- The Oneness of God
This chapter will layout the understanding of the God of the Bible being one with all.
There is nothing that is outside the scope of the creating and re-creation of God.
Phillipians 4 – What ever is good Philip. 4:8 (GW)
Finally, brothers and sisters, keep your thoughts on whatever is right or deserves praise: things that are true, honorable, fair, pure, acceptable, or commendable.
Humanity is not just fallen, it is re-created.
3- Work can be more than acting good – it can be doing good.
Each chapter will show how the activity of God creates the context for our desire to do each of these things.
Time will be spent to show the destruction that can come when these elements degrade, or are left un-re-created.
The question become how do we arrange our lives so we are doing that which God does?
This chapter will discuss many of the things God does, and present ways people arrange their lives to be in rhythm with what God is doing.
4- Leisure can be in harmony with God
Pleasure, Exercise, Sex, competition
5- Money Can be in harmony with God
Resources, power,
6- Technology can be in harmony with God
7- Creativity can be in harmony with God
Music, art, architecture, beauty
8- Making a personal and communal plan for life in harmony with God
Family issues
Running list of what God does
Creates
Loves
Protects
Make beauty
Brings peace
Provides
Teaches
Disciplines
Re-creates
Forgives
Gives new starts
Honors
Respects
Calls
Speaks into being
Is prophetic
Seeks Justice
Loves Mercy
Inspires
Lives in community
Laughs – enjoys
Includes
Invites
Warns
Heals
Blesses
Makes all thing better
Reveals truth
Forgives
Welcomes
Lives in harmony
Communicates
Last week was a busy one. I was in Nashville with a bunch of friends, Mark Scandrette, Thom Olson, Mark Oestreicher, Jeanie Stevens, Greg Warner.
I also hooked up with some new friends who live in Nashville, Denise, Peter, and Penny. Then I met a bunch of new friends.
But I was not just hanging with friends. The main reason for the trip was for a planning meeting for the emergent conventions. We did some great planning and I really feel good about the events. I will see if Mark can send me some pictures to post.
I also met with Peter York and Denise George, two of my Nashville friends. They work with Sparrow records and we are kicking around an idea of having a song writers event to help facilitate new content in worship music. I am really excited about the possibility of this.
Then Greg, Thom, Mark S. and I made the decision to go ahead with the idea of emergent partnering on taking over FaithWorks magazine.
We have the really great idea of how this will go. I will tell more in future blogs when we have all of our stuff together. It will be soon – we hope to have the first issue out in March.
So there is classic Minnesota winter storm warning tonight, so we cancelled the Bible Discussion Group and I am home. Taylor and I just got home from his first basketball game of the season.
I am waiting to watch 24, but I want to wait until it has recorded so I can fast forward through the commercials.
On the health front, I started on a homeopathic today – Sulfur, for those who know about homeopathic I took five little tablets, three times in a 24 hour period.
And on an unrelated note – am in the middle of a patch test to see if I have allergies – I have this unrelenting dermatitis on my hand. So now my back itches and I am all smelly from not taking a shower for two day. What a glorious life!
I have been doing some thinking about a book I want to write – now that I am an author and all I have to think about such things J
Here is my first pass at an idea – I did this on the plane heading to Nashville,
Living Rhythm – An Invitation to Life in Harmony With God
Premise – There is a way of life that is in harmony with God that extends to all areas of our lives.
We are called not only to act Christianly in what we do, but to have the very essence of what we do be in harmony with God.
Our call is to arrange our lives so we are living in a way that creates what God creates and removes that which God removes.
We are called to a life that is connected to God in all things and connected to all things.
The most basic description of God in the Bible comes from Deuteronomy 6 – Hear of Israel the Lord you God is one�. This is referred to by Jesus as well. The call here is that God is one with all that is. This removes the notion of a sacred and secular life. We are not called to live religious lives that counter balance our secular life. We are called to live a whole life in rhythm with God.
The activity of God has always included creating and re-creating. We are invited to be agents of the kingdom of God by doing those very things that God is about. God’s economy includes dependence upon his creation working in harmony with God. This is not simply a benefit to our lives, it may very well be the chief end of humanity.
This sits at the center of Jesus’ call for people to join the Kingdom of God.
What does it mean to live in the kingdom of God in the 21st century world. We live a different world that that of the Bible characters including Jesus, so what does it mean to live whole lives in rhythm with God in our world?
The thesis of the book is built on the notion that through the activities of God we find our way of behaving. This is to look at God though the actions of God and not primarily through the character of God.
The call will be for people to arrange their lives and action to be in harmony with God’s life and action and not primarily focused on our characters transformed more in the likeness of God.
The phrase “Christ-like� will be played with to bring out the doing what Jesus did aspect. The call of Jesus to live like those created in the image of God will be understood around action and not character.
The Leviticus and Deuteronical call is based on God doing particular things that then implicate God’s followers to do particular things.
Care will be given to make a distinction of from a “works based� salvation to a this is how we are to live as those seeking to be in rhythm with God.
Because God is this way, we ought to be this way – be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect – is the essence.
Rhythm with God in life will replace belief in God as the goal of a Christian life. Belief is a means to that end – life lived in rhythm with God. Not the other way around.
This is what God does, and this is how we can join God in that kind of work in our world. For an agrarian society the idea that God was a shepherd who cared for his sheep was easily understood and made sense as to how they should care for their sheep. What does that look like in our industrialized, technological world?
Our job of following God is to keep aware of what God is doing and join into it.
Jesus institution of Foot Washing has this feel. What I have done for you, do for one another.
Chapters will include real life stories of people who are living in the rhythm of God from around the world. Each chapter will have a description of why we ought to be in rhythm with God in this area and real stories of what that looks like.
Ie.- The story of the guy at church one night who is an insurance claims adjuster and did not see how his job was in the activity of what God does in the world.
This book will have a very practical an compelling feel to it. Ideal for churches, individuals and small groups seeking to live more harmonious lives.
10 chapters long with workable material at the end of each chapter.
Other books like it:
Purpose Driven Life
Experiencing God
Chapters –
1- A new world opportunity
This chapter will show the importance and wonderful opportunities of an understanding of an invitation, re-creative theology.
The differences in the world we live in and the world Jesus lived in. Discussion of the changing world over time and the constant faithful response of followers of God
2- The Oneness of God
This chapter will layout the understanding of the God of the Bible being one with all.
There is nothing that is outside the scope of the creating and re-creation of God.
Phillipians 4 – What ever is good Philip. 4:8 (GW)
Finally, brothers and sisters, keep your thoughts on whatever is right or deserves praise: things that are true, honorable, fair, pure, acceptable, or commendable.
Humanity is not just fallen, it is re-created.
3- Work can be more than acting good – it can be doing good.
Each chapter will show how the activity of God creates the context for our desire to do each of these things.
Time will be spent to show the destruction that can come when these elements degrade, or are left un-re-created.
The question become how do we arrange our lives so we are doing that which God does?
This chapter will discuss many of the things God does, and present ways people arrange their lives to be in rhythm with what God is doing.
4- Leisure can be in harmony with God
Pleasure, Exercise, Sex, competition
5- Money Can be in harmony with God
Resources, power,
6- Technology can be in harmony with God
7- Creativity can be in harmony with God
Music, art, architecture, beauty
8- Making a personal and communal plan for life in harmony with God
Family issues
Running list of what God does
Creates
Loves
Protects
Make beauty
Brings peace
Provides
Teaches
Disciplines
Re-creates
Forgives
Gives new starts
Honors
Respects
Calls
Speaks into being
Is prophetic
Seeks Justice
Loves Mercy
Inspires
Lives in community
Laughs – enjoys
Includes
Invites
Warns
Heals
Blesses
Makes all thing better
Reveals truth
Forgives
Welcomes
Lives in harmony
Communicates
