The internet at home will not be working until sometime Friday or so. Therefore, I can not promise that there will be daily blogs this week, seeing as the only accessible internet for me is at work. I will try. I have a few back-blogs that I need to write up so I will try earnestly to make sure that there is new content this week.
Thank you for your understanding.
- Management
I’ve been feeling quite boring the last few weeks.
I dread the question “How are you doing?”. I feel that I have not much to say. “O.K. I guess.” is usually my answer.
It feels like I’ve fallen into a rut. I’m not looking for sympathay. I’m just stating my feelings for the moment.
I lack meaningful deep conversations. I lack being around people in community. I feel like I keep working and nothing is happening. (one of the great traps of ministry)
I don’t even know what would bring me out of my slumps.
Maybe I need some direction. Maybe I need to think less. Maybe it’s just the heat. I don’t know.
I guess all I can do is ask for prayers. Pray for revelation in my life, pray for comfort, pray for peace and understanding.
And I will pray for you as well. Leave a request on the left, under FREE PRAYER.
Sorry this week’s posts have been sub-par. I think they echo my overall feeling.
Audio of part of the jam session at Andrew Enns’ bachelor party.
click Trogdor to play
brought to you by audioblogger.com
(I’m not sure if I’ve posted this before, but it’s come to my mind again.)
For a while I’ve been somewhat intrigued with church planting.
I think the main reason is that the premise of planting a church is that one church is growing and the need for another church arises out of the growth of the first.
I’ve always wanted to be a part of a community that is growing in such a way that necessitates the planting of a new church. I want to be part of a church community that is continually training leaders to pastor over new groups of believers.
While I am a life time Presbyterian, there are so many things that interest me in other denominations or the non-denom churches.
I’m not saying that Presbyterians are dead. I just have to stop and start to wonder why we are not growing in the ways that necessitates church planting. I’m not saying either that Presbyterians don’t grow.
I’m just wanting to look outside my own tradition and learn from what others are doing in the world of church.
I want to be more well-rounded in the realm of understanding what is happening outside of my one tradition. And possibly bring some of the other traditions into my own.
This post comes after reading Matt’s latest post about church, found here.
While Matt makes the statement “Why the time is not right for another Reformation”.
I have to say that maybe reformation is the wrong word to choose when looking towards the future of the church.
Yes our church history points towards “reformation” as the catalyst for change. Though I think we are improperly pointing back towards reformation to describe where the church is heading.
Yes, emergent, could be seen as a reformation of protestantism. Though I do not think this is the goal of whatever is happening now. I agree when Matt says “The institutional church could use work, could be streamlined, but I think the real change now has to happen on the individual level.” Yes!!! We are in great need of people in leadership and those who are not in leadership (who probably should be), to stir up the church and get people off their asses!!!
Whatever is happening now, call it emergent, call it reformation, is that people are finally having a personal encounter with a God who is not contained within the box of mainline Christianity in America. They are beginning to be aware that God is a global God, they are becoming aware that God is not a white God, they are becoming aware that more than “born again” christians seek God in a real and meaningful way.
While Matt contends that the church could not be headed towards a reformation because “I think the church is lacking one thing essential for a reformation: institutional corruption. I believe that for the most part, the American church today is not corrupt on the institutional level.”
I have to say that it may not be political corruption, or even money as the source of corruption. I see the corruption as complacency and a desire to make God a happy, loving God, instead of a big, wild, unknown, stern and gracious God.
As much as I’d love to know exactly what God is going to do next, or how he is going to respond to a certain situation, I in no way want to live under a predictable God who makes everything come up roses all the time.
The hunger and thirst is there. I know plenty of people and students who struggle daily with just understanding who God is. My hope is that church can move towards being places where people can publicly and freely question who God is, wrestle with the fact that they don’t have a clue to what God is up to or where he is in their lives. Instead of having God dictated to them in 3 points or with the historical understanding of Pauline ethics in a post Christocentric Middle East.
The reform comes when we challenge (not necessarily break down) the current context of the way our relationship with God is lived out under the guidance of Church.
I am and have been a fence rider.
I would love to see churches come to an understanding that nothing is necessarily broken that needs to be abandoned and re-built, but that we can acknowledge that there are a few cracks in the foundation and that possibly some serious repairs and re-thinking needs to occur, but that everything is not lost.
We are on the brink of re-defining reformation. We do not need to repeat the mistakes of Catholic separation. We do not need a new “division”. We need to re-define a few things. And reformation is one of them. Change is what we are after. Change can bring healing if done in the correct way.
I think we are the generation that is learning that changed does not have to be violent or divisive. We are the generation who wants God to happen. And we are praying that he once again becomes the sole reason that Church exists.
Over the last few months (since starting my job) I have been wanting to grow in the ability to discern things.
In some ways I definitely have seen some growth in understanding circumstances and situations. But in most instances I have nothing to gauge whether or not I am able to discern more.
Much of what I’ve wanted to be able to discern was with students. More about their feeling and what is going on in their lives. The intangible things that do not always just come to the surface when you say hi to someone. I often lack the ability to get students to open up with information that is often hidden. Though that in itself is not part of discerning, I would like the ability to even recognize that there is even a problem.
Over the last few months I have begun to notice more things about the way church is handled and done, which I don’t know if it is more discernment or just a reaction to my involvement in emergent thinking.
I’m not sure what my overall goal is other to be a better pastor and youth director, who is aware of what is going on in students lives and the life of the congregation.
I guess I would ask for you all to possibly suggest books or articles or whatnot on spiritual discernment or the like.
A very fragmented post at the least, but I felt the need to blog today so there you go.
I sold out to the man.
I signed up with Google Adsense.
I doubt I get enough hits a day or have people who will actually click on any of the links to actually make any money off this. But oh well…we’ll see where it gets me.
Sorry to go commercial on all of you. Let me know if they get too distracting.
This comes from Henri Nouwen’s book on prayer, With Open Hands
I intentionally posted it without quotes or reference, to see what reaction I got but no one responded.
It’s been a good week of relaxing for me, hence not too many posts. More to come soon.
“and yet you are christian only so long as you look forward to a new world, so long as you constantly pose critical questions to the society you live in, so long as you emphasize the need of conversion both for yourself and for the world, so long as you in no way let yourself become established in a situation of seeming calm, so long as you stay unsatisfied with the status quo and keep saying that a new world is yet to come. you are christian only when you believe that you have a role to play in the realization if this new kingdom, and when you urge everyone you meet with holy unrest to make haste so that the promise might soon be fulfilled. so long as you live as a christian you keep looking for a new order, a new structure, a new life.” – Henri Nouwen
If you have ever worked at a fast food restaurant or in the service area then you are familiar with asking the question “how may I help you?” or any number of variants.
The main goal in the question is to purvey the sense of service. You work in customer service. Your business has something the customer wants and you are part of the process that serves the customer.
I was reading in Tony Jones’ book The Sacred Way about service. Not just us serving, but more about how Jesus served and therefore calls us to serve.
Think about how we pray and what usually happens when we communicate with God, so rarely do I find myself asking God, “How may I help you?”
If we truly are seeking after being a slave, servant or one who bows down to another. Then isn’t it only natural for us to be asking the question. I know at least, that most of my questions start with the phrase “I want” or “it would be really great if…” or “could you…”
And often times I am left without an answer.
What would happen if we started asking “How can I help you?” or “Is there anything you need?” or “What do you need me to do”.
Tony in the chapter about prayer labyrinths makes a great statement that fits perfectly with us coming to God and asking to serve him.
One of the most common ways to pray the labyrinth is to ask God a question upon entering and then to listen for an answer.
Possibly this is how we need to live our lives. Continually asking God to give us the tasks that when completed will allow us to be dutiful servants to an almighty God.
I’ll leave you with a quote from the chapter on service:
The team that worked on the (pig)pen in this home painted a poignant portrait tonight at devotions: Almost every one of them, upon seeing the feces they were going to have to wade through as they carried bricks back and forth either thought or said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ That is, until one of them said, ‘This is being a servant!’ Suddenly their perspective changed and the rest of the day was actually a joy, regardless of the footing.
Copyright © 2004–2009. All rights reserved.
RSS Feed. This blog is proudly powered by Wordpress and uses Modern Clix, a theme by Rodrigo Galindez.