Doogie Howser Did It, So Why Not Me?

Emerging like a turtle from its shell

I’m totally bummed that I won’t be going to Emergent in San Diego. It’s happening this week and I’d hoped that I would be in a better working environment that would allow me the resources and funds to go. But since I’m still waiting to get out of my current job and into a ministry job, I guess I’ll have to miss out, which is doubly bad since this is the last time YS is sponsoring the shindig.

I do have an interview with a church on Wed and I could totally use prayer for that. It’s my prayer that maybe that will work out in time for me to possibly go to Nashville for that convention in May.

I’m sure there will be plenty of people in the blogging world via planetemergent.org who will be posting about the event so I for one will be checking to hear what they have to say about their experiences there. I look forward to some good thoughts about what it means to do ministry today in a changing world.

Emerging Ethos

Even if we could unite under one banner or statement, the thing to consider is big change starts small. I was talking to a pastor friend last night and she said a lot of things that I needed to hear, and I am grateful for that, but mostly I am grateful for the statement she had about change.

The wish we all have is for great change. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make a difference and change things for the better. Yet I think our expectations (especially mine) have been molded towards the chance to make one big change that will fix everything or change everyone’s mind about the way they are doing things.

Reality check (for me at least). I think the time for the emergent church has come for us to begin to stop our focus on trying to pinpoint a theology or basis for emergent, and turn our attention to ourselves and our congregations. If you hold a position of leadership or authority, this is your time to make small changes. Begin to erode the structural confines of the church. Begin to crack the mud that is caked on the eyes of those who claim to see. I am not talking about toppling the whole infrastructure of organized church. One of my goals for emergent has always been to walk alongside my current denomination, my current church and humbly come to the leadership and try and present a new view of where church is going.

This is one of those situations where 1 Tim 4:12 somehow doesn’t quite apply. Or if it does then all I end up doing is coming off as pompous and arrogant. There in lies the problem. Us “young’ns” have the enormous task of gaining the respect and trust of those who have been doing ministry for the last 30-50 years and finding a way for them to allow us to make the small changes that will hopefully lead towards our vision for an emerging church.

The question still remains: “What does the Emergent Church mean to me?”

I pose that to you and ask you to answer it yourself.

I will eventually find my voice and prepare a more detailed exposition of my thoughts.

Feel free to leave comments and link to your thoughts.

You’ll Go Down In History

Thinking about the emergent church, I began to ponder where church history fit into the picture.

I went to a Christian College and received training in church history, names, dates, events, etc, and plan on going to seminary. But when I think back on all of my younger years at church, I remember little to no church history, except for that 5 min in my confirmation class.

As I think about how most of the emergent church stems from non-denom churches I also have to ponder how much these churches talk about history at all either. I understand this can be a boring subject for youth and adults alike. Though I do find it critical to helping people understand their faith. I do not think it is a limited resource for those who are fortunate to be called into ministry or those who choose to undertake seminary.

We should be providing all of our members with a sound foundation of information about the history of the church and the great theological thinkers of the past who have shaped our current state. The overall lack of education that Christians receive is directly related to the lack of people who go into ministry.

I speak from a Presbyterian background and I see the need there as well as the Emergent church. But I am not about to run out on my tradition (that’s what tradition is about) because I want to be a part of the emergent culture. We need to begin to help people understand how we as learned pastors and theologically minded people view and interpret scripture and culture through a theological lens, so that they themselves can begin to do the same. The underlying problem in most failing denominations is the lack of understanding of who we are (as Christians today) and where we came from (aside from the Jewish history we find in Scripture).

Lets work this into the framework of our emergent culture. A revision of how to teach and impart our theological and cultural histories to our congregations and future leaders.

Running for Office of Politics

Man oh man, I hate office politics. I’m just glad that there’s not a lot of growth potential at this job. Otherwise I think I’d be royally screwed.

Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m working in the secular world and people have even a harder time forgiving others or it’s that they just don’t care about each other.

The hardest thing for me is trying to be the peacemaker and ushering in reconciliation. It’s such a fine line between sides and not necessarily trying to be on the right side, but making sure that both sides don’t hate you.

Otherwise I’ll just be a whipping boy. But then the other side of me takes hold, and asks me to laydown and humble myself and the need to make things right takes over, even if it’s at the expense of myself and possibly my job.

Yet I really like to eat and I need a job to pay for food.

And I can only assume that things are not 100% better if I worked at church either. Conflict has and always will exist. We are just the ones who should be focused on resolution and bringing about reconciliation and love to those who choose not to love one another.

I knew there was a reason

If only this held true for the rest of my room and my life.

Wine and Tunes

Hit up Room 5 for the first time in a LONG LONG time last night. Went down with Bill and John for a relaxing evening of music and drink.

I probably shouldn’t have gone since I was so tired and had to actually get up for work the next day, but I somehow seemed to get myself up today, so I’m really glad I went. We had to leave a little early, which in this case was late for me. But there was a good 2 more hours of music after we left. Though I didn’t feel like staying out til 1 on a work night.

I did hear a few artists besides the usual Jay Nash and Tyrone Wells (Mike Barnet was absent, and I’m not sure if he’s comming back).

If you like good music then be sure to check out

Gabriel Mann

and

Garrison Starr (she’s a chick)

I really enjoyed their sets and it was nice to hear some new music. I’ll have to start saving my pennies to buy their albums.

Are we forgetting about whom we work for?

Was reading Oswald Chamber’s book “My Utmost for His Highest” for the Jan 24th entry and something struck me when I was thinking about the emergent church.

“Paul was devoted to a Person not to a cause”…”He was absolutely Jesus Christ’s, he saw nothing else, he lived for nothing else.”

When I think about our cause…the emerging church…I often wonder if we get too wrapped up in wanting something new and different that we have forgotten what is oldest and most pure.

Not that I want to undervalue our desire to heed change. I can only hope that our purpose is driven by what led us to this place in the beginning. Christ is who we want people to encounter, sure we want him to be encountered in a new way, but he remains the same, the Alpha and Omega. Let us not forget or lose focus on the one who gives us life, strength, and a desire to let all know how much his loves yearns for them.

Blogger Light: Only 12 Calories

I’m pretty busy at work today, so if I post at all, it will be later tonight.

Complete Texts of 2005 Inauguration Prayers

I finally tracked down the 2 transcrips for the prayers given by the Rev. Dr. Luis Leon, rector at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Washington and Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, senior pastor at Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston.

Here is the text from Luis Leon’s Invocation

Let us pray

Most gracious and eternal God, we gather here today as a grateful people who enjoy the many blessings you have bestowed on this nation. We are grateful for your vision, which inspired the founders of our nation to create this democratic experiment as one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

We are grateful to you that you have brought to these shores a multitude of peoples of many ethnic, religious and language backgrounds and yet have fashioned one nation out of so many cultures and traditions.

Even as we celebrate our — this great moment, we remember before you the members of our armed forces. We commend them to your care. Give them courage to carry out their duties and courage the face the perils which we set them, and grant them always the sense of your presence in all that they do.

Finally today, we are especially grateful for this inauguration, which marks a new beginning in our journey as a people and a nation. We pray that you will shower the elected leaders of this land and especially, George, our president, and Richard, our vice president, with your life giving spirit.

Fill them with a love of truth and righteousness that they may serve you and this nation ably and glad to do your will. Endow their hearts with your spirit of wisdom that they may lead us in renewing the ties of mutual respect which form our civic life, so that peace may prevail with righteousness and justice with order.

We pray that you will strengthen their resolve as they lead our nation seeking to serve you in this world, that this good and generous country may be a blessing to the nations of the world.

And may they lead us to become, in the words of Martin Luther King, members of a beloved community, loving our neighbors as ourselves so that all of us may more closely come to fulfill the promise of our Founding Fathers, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All this we ask in your most holy name, amen.

Here is Caldwell’s, and here is the audio

Oh Lord God Almighty, the supply and supplier of faith and freedom, how excellent is Your name in all the earth. You are great and greatly to be praised. God, as we conclude this 55th inaugural ceremony, we conclude it with an attitude of thanksgiving. Thank You for protecting America’s borders. After all, the Psalmist reminds us, unless You, O God, guard the territory, our efforts will be in vain.

Thank You for our armed service personnel. And it is with unswerving thanksgiving that we pause to remember the persons who have made the ultimate sacrifice to help ensure America’s safety. Thank You, O God, for surrounding our personnel, their families, their friends and our allies with Your favor and Your faithfulness.

Deploy Your hosts from heaven so that Your will for America will be performed on earth as it is already perfected in heaven. I confess that Your face will shine upon the United States of America, granting us social peace and economic prosperity, particularly for the weary and the poor.

I also confess, God, that each American’s latter days will be better than their former days. Let it be unto us according to Your Word.

Rally the Republicans, the Democrats and the Independents around Your common good so that America will truly become one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty, justice and equal opportunity for all — including the least, the last and the lost.

Bless every elected official right now. God, I declare Your blessings to shower upon our president, George W. Bush. Bless him, his family and his administration. I once again declare that no weapon formed against them shall prosper.

God, forgive us for becoming so ensnarled in petty partisan politics that we miss Your glory and block our purpose. Deliver us from the evil one, from evil itself and from the mere appearance of evil.

Give us clean hearts, so that we might have clean agendas, clean priorities and programs and even clean financial statements.

Now, unto You, O God, the One who always has been and always will be, the one King of kings and the true power broker, we glorify and honor You.

Respecting persons of all faiths, I humbly submit this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ.

I’ll take some time to read them and then I’ll comment on them later.

About those TPS reports

Today I went on an “exploratory” job interview. (This one’s for you Mea, be thankful for the bank.)

I got a call on wed telling me my resume on monster.com looked good and I possessed many of the skills that would be needed for this position at Primerica.

At first I was excited it sounded like an alternative to my current job and if I made some more money then that would be an added bonus.

Then I started mentioning it to some friends about the job possibility and my friend Karen said she a year or so ago had been to something that sounded quite similar.

Warning flags. But I was still hopeful that it would be a legitimate job offer and it could prove to be interesting.

So I woke up at 7 on a Sat morning to drag my butt out to Burbank. Not too bad, a little early but not horrible, at least there was no traffic.

I had a few reservations when going. 1 If this is a group interview then I’m out of there. 2 If they make me sit through a “presentation”, I’m outta there. 3 If they give me a name tag, I’m outta there. 4 If I get a real funny feeling, I’m out of there.

I get there and it’s face to face type thing. For now… The guy tells me some really vague things and then tells me about the presentation. Not to be rude I break reservation #2. He then leads me into a conference room where I’ll have to wait another 30 min for the presentation to begin. And as he instructs me to wait, he slaps a NAME TAG on me. Reservation #3 broken. I’m just trying to be nice now. Right before he leaves me in the room I ask him if it’s ok if I leave if I don’t like the presentation and stuff. And he gives me some line about it’s ok if I do but it’s really distracting.

I sit and wait for 30 min and eventually people trickle in with the same confused and cautious looks on their faces.

Finally the presentation begins and the guy is nice and all. But I have this skepticism that stays with me for the whole meeting. Reservation #4 broken.

Long story short I sit through the whole thing, waste my time, refrain from asking the guy straight out if this is some legitimate pyramid scheme…blah, blah, blah.

Come next week, I’ll be asking my boss for a raise after only being there 4 months.

For a couple of real life experiences with Primerica read

this (I think this is the better of the two, yet I’m sure it’s a little bitter)

and

this

Keep praying that I find the right call to ministry. It is continually confirmed in me that’s what I should be doing, I’m just still waiting for the right opportunity.