Monday, November 21, 2005

changing the subject

I want to invite you all to join me this week in enjoying one of God's greater gifts to the world.

buy the ingredients. make it. take a photo and post it on your blog and leave us a link on this comments page.

mmmmmmm.

distractions

You know that phrase, you win some you loose some.

how about, the Lord gives and the Lord Takes away.

how about, life's a beach... I never got that one.

Matthew 10 talks about what it means to follow Christ. Part of what it says is that we have to be willing to surrender our relationships with people for the sake of our relationship with God. I know that God will not ask of me every relationship in my life. He set the whole thing up so that we would each depend, in many ways, on other people in our lives to help us grow and for general health in life. I have been blessed with some pretty amazing friendships. For that i am very thankful.

I think I lost a friend recently.

The worst part is there is no question about it. I'm pretty sure i got dumped. I wish i could say it was mutual. It wasn't. We weren't compatible or anything but that has never mattered to me. I have always enjoyed friends of all kinds. Many of whom were quite different from me. This was the case here. I guess i thought that we would keep on doing what we were doing - being different - in friendship, where we could stretch, and challenge, and influence each other, or at least teach each other how to love people different than you. They didn't feel the same.

i didn't plan on sharing any of this. but i read a post that reminded me that blogs aren't just about entertainment but also about sharing life. I guess the threat in all of that is that when you share life, It give people the chance to follow another link and opt out.

I guess we all have to learn like C.S. Lewis “The pain is now part of the happiness then. That’s the deal.”






Thursday, November 03, 2005

jogging on the spot

Saw this great post...

http://dustball.blogspot.com/2005/10/being-in-church-not-of-it.html

The Touch community

i have nothing to add. Read this

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

The Shaping of things to come


I have been reading a new book lately.....

The book reflects and in some way leads us through what is currently an unprecedented interest and focus on reshaping the church for mission. Some who love the church in its present incarnation will shake their heads and demand protectively that the church is already shaped for mission. So this book might annoy you... or on the other hand it might be a breathe of fresh air.

anyways here's something to think about.

Chapter 1 argues that tweaking the system will be of no avail. We do not need an evolution, we need revolution. The authors quote Einstein that "the kind of thinking that will solve the world's problems will be of a different order than the kind that created those problems in the first place." We need to step out of the box of Christendom.

Christendom, as opposed to the movement Jesus initiated (Christianity), has been the dominant religious force in the world for 1700 years. Under Constantine Christianity moved from a subversive, marginalized and persecuted movement to the favorite religion of the empire. "Christianity moved from being a dynamic .. movement.. to being a religious institution with its attendant structures, priesthood and sacraments."

the authors say "We believe the missional genius of the church can only be unleashed when there are foundational changes made to the church's very DNA, and this means addressing core issues like ecclesiology, spirituality, and leadership... Ok here comes the kicker


"It means a complete shift away from Christendom thinking, which is attractional, dualistic, and hierarchical."

did you hear that... " attractional, dualistic, and hierarchical"

The western church has been primarily attractional, and has stood apart from culture and invited people to "come in."

Frost and Hirsch suggest incarnational as the alternative to attractional.

... "the Incarnation provides us with the missional means by which the gospel can become a genuine part of a people group without damaging the cultural frameworks that provide a sense of history and meaning" and that "in reaching a people group we need to identify with them in all ways possible without compromising the truth of the gospel itself."

I have been wrestling with this for the last year or so. How to intersect with the community for the purpose of living incarnationally.

how do i do it.
how do we as the church do it.
how do you teach people how to do it.

I am becoming more and more convinced that this is why we reach so few with Jesus