What is it like to follow Jesus - part 3?

Now the tax collectors

(back-stabbing SOB's - so cold-hearted. They'd foreclose on a widow with 10 kids and make her live on the street and then hire her as a prostitute just a week later.)

and the sinners

(filth of society, prostitutes, trashy, homos, transvestites, porn stars, the porn industry - you know - those people - at least they're honest at how filthy they really are.)

were all gathering around to hear him.


But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered,

(such proper men who have such good morals. The opposite of sin is morals and they want to purify our society. We need moral police don't we? If we follow them then we will have a better life won't we? We should learn from them and meet with them to find out what's next for us. They are wonderful men)

"This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."

(Jesus would rather spend time with sinners and tax collectors than with the Pharisees and teachers of the law - that's weird - well at least I don't have to do that - like I always say, "I’d rather spend time with a wicked righteous person than a righteous wicked person")

Luke 15:1-2

What is it like to follow Jesus - part 2?

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor

-Jesus

What is it like to follow Jesus?

Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless;

(provide security)

maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.

(govern and judge rightly and with equity)

Rescue the weak and needy;

(intervention)

deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

(redeem freedom's cause)



Psalm 82:3-4

To follow Jesus...

"There is more absence of God that the saints experience than presence."

- Dr. VanGemeren

For whom the Pendulum swings - an Overdue Underduck

There are many pendulums swinging at the same time. Some swing farther than others and take much longer to return from their climb. Some are louder than others and make more noise. History is the swing of the pendulum and the spiral of the conundrum and it’s not written by he who has the most toys. It is a complex ongoing system of swinging and spiraling upward, backward, forward and downward. This process looks more like the movements within a matrix and spectrums of light dancing on the walls from a crystal hung in the window.

Life moves forward but much like change it can move two steps forward but one step back, three steps forward then four steps back, then 3 steps forward and 1 step back – but it is always continuously moving forward like a sanctification scale. There are many pendulum swings and the emergent Church corrective is one long overdue underduck that’s been swinging one direction for too long. Some have tried (Rauschenbusch, Gutierrez and others) to bring it back the other way, but they got over hauled and over stepped and maybe stepped on in their day. Maybe now their corrective efforts can be attained but still within the vision of Jesus Christ having lordship in the external and internal world, on the noumenal and the phenomenal planes of reality, in the hearts of humanity as well as in their lives, relationships, social contexts, ethnicities, languages and everywhere that God has planned for redemption to reach.

So pick a pendulum or two and swing, maybe subversively, maybe subserviently, maybe as a sage, maybe submissively and maybe all of them or none at all but maybe in your own way.

Only remember to listen, learn, laugh a lot and discern. Enjoy the highs and lows, but be committed to Christ at every level and in every conversation know that you carry a shovel.

Commit yourself to Christ more than you are committed to your ideals, your community, your tradition, your theology, your context and condition, even to your holy Writ which is really your interpretation of it, and let the ride take you higher than you’ve gone before with people you’ve never ridden with, people who may not share your core and as the pendulum swings as in the days of yore, consider the lilies and that one day you’ll see clearly what’s been in store - in the place and time where we won’t strive, cry or toil anymore. These pendulums will be history when we finally reach that Pilgrim shore so remember not to forget that we are not masters of the swing – the pendulum is not our chore.

God in His sovereignty is the same today as He was yesterday – the pendulum doesn’t move Zion’s mountain or lock the Temple door. So please, will you lay down your quill, come shake my hand, and with an Overdue Underduck, we'll swing into forevermore.

Written by Nathan Smith (kind of)

Well done my good and faithful Servant!

In the early days of Canada – the goal was to get to the Western shore and make it a country from shore to shore. This would give Canada sovereignty between two oceans. They compromised though on the Westcoast with the trading company by breaking their own laws to establish coast to coast sovereignty in diminishing the size of the tracts of land that they gave the Native people in order to appease the trading company that owned that portion of the new world and had their vested interest there. The tracts of land in the east are much larger because the government followed their own laws but the farther west they got – the lesser importance to virtue, law and ethics was important because they wanted to gain sovereignty – God never diminishes Creation's dignity and value in order to gain sovereignty - He does so by giving sacrificially even to the point of giving His Son and by tearing the Trinity apart. The early settlers ignored this aspect of God to the degree that they ignored the whole person and dignity of the Native community and tore their dignity to pieces instead of what God tears - Himself. All of this -to gain “manifest destiny’s” destiny, but nobody wants to hear that.


They paved over the ancient paths and erected the “civilized” secure barns of gratuity over the “savage” sacred burial grounds ( the wealthy man in the parable who builds barns and then eats and drinks and is merry)– all for greed, pride and power. They didn’t want Russia, the US or anyone else to get it so they cut a deal that compromised their very laws in order to get the west coast under the banner of that flag with a red maple leaf and red bars – in some ways it might as well be drenched in blood for the color we call red, but nobody wants to hear that.

I grew up in that part of Canada with the Indians and my house was situated 300 ft above the river that was used to discover the west coast – the Fraser River. Little did I realize that the canoes that passed my home hundreds of years ago with my ancestors in them would spurn a genocide of land grabbing and the destructive forces that ripped dignity and identity from a chosen people. I didn’t choose to exist in a day where others like me would forget that and live as if it had never happened, but sovereignly I was put there. Will we all enjoy the benefits of our ancestor’s efficient business transactions and continue to own land that was stolen, maybe we thought they would foreclose anyways. Land that cries out like the Creation groans and the cry that is as fresh as the blood of Abel which still flows and forms wet clay under our feet from the sacred dirt we callous with our imperial shoes – unable to know that it’s still wet with blood and to trod the injustice under our feet and at the same time – right under our nose. We get mad at the mud from the dirt and the blood that we carry into our homes. Then Mr. Clean sparkles our domesticated heart-wood floors. We look for the sun to the east from our western, heartless but "necessary" chores, longing for more settlers with warm words - only to comfort and assail our conscience with good news from other shores.


Were we called to follow a Savior that crushes the clod - or the head of a serpent? Were we called not to suffer at our own expense and our own dignity if we chose to follow a limping Savior from a Serpent’s snare?

It’s too political they say –
I wonder if Yahweh applauds that
and also turns his eyes away?

“It’s too far removed from us they say, it’s not our responsibility – that was our forefathers – why should we have to concern ourselves with what they did wrong? Don’t the Indians (post-savages) have a better life now anyway – now that we’re here?”

Ohhh, if we could only read the Holy Writ again and see that God favors a people who know oppression and not the privilege of a lawmaker's pen. Privilege gained by oppression has a price – and though you spend all day in the store stealing, the sun will go down and disappear and closing time will arrive, anticipating the dawn. At that point – you still have to walk out the door with what is hidden in your pockets – now is the time to put it back upon the shelf and realize that you’ve have been recorded – your every move. Will you seek forgiveness only and empty your pockets at the door or will you Restock redemptively and breathe the very air of forgiveness today while it is still called today – some by the skin of their teeth and others not – who will you be at the door?

The sovereignty of God doesn’t require us to ignore and override the “other” – it actually calls us to the "other" because the “other” represents a portion of God’s desire to reveal Himself to us. If we ignore the “other” we are ignoring an aspect of God. If we assume superiority or sovereignty and ignorance over the "other" we are doing that to a royal and sovereign God. “Do unto the least of these and you will do it unto me.” If we override them – we get what we want but we have to realize openly that we have been rapacious in the process, that we have been fallacious and carelessly uncautious - that we have raped royalty – that we are rapists. If we can be okay with that – then march on, if not then sit down and listen and wait, weep and wander around in your heart, mind and life story – ask myself and yourself, and ourselves what it would be like to live life rightly instead of efficiently, to be gracious and gratuitous, to be graced royally, to be gracists and not racists. Efficiency is not wrong but we do use it as a virtue when it’s actually an excuse? And though our lives soar upward in success, our hearts plummet to the earth awaiting sure death, but we dont' want to hear that breath breathe those words - deathhhh

Is there hope? Yes, but hope can only have it’s proper and effectual power when it can rise up against its enemy. Our hearts and lives are called to then embrace that reality so that hope has a clear voice against the noise that booms in our ears that resonates in our eyesight - though at one time it was not seen, not heard, and not a bother, and only now we have heard, only now we have seen. Awaken, listen, search the pockets of your soul for what your life has stolen and then ask yourself - who you will be at the door?

Written by Nathan Smith (kind of)

A passive aggressive postmodern - Part 2 (a cynics rant?)

Just because I’m not becoming you
Doesn’t mean that you can’t help me become me.
Hey modernity – it ain’t easy being postmodernity.

Hey modernity – maybe implicity I’m angry in my verbage to thee
and that anger in my heart now written, might to seem to be for my mommy and daddy

True or not,I guess is that wrong for me?
And when did you start liking psychology?

But you formed them after they created you
What should I do with a parent that doesn’t want to be reformed
By the misunderstood people that they created too?

Modernity, we’re no longer just ideas
Postmodernity is now an identity

Hey Modernity - why not ask Somebody else what’s going on
Instead of telling us “there’s nothing new under the sun”

I guess Aristotle understood the theory of relativity
And that our forefathers really did need slaves

Should I defer to that which doesn’t see me as different
Or to that which may hear my logos but not its pathos?

I may sound angry and it’s because I am
But my emotions don’t belong in a closed system

You may not be able to control them
but could they have been predicted?

Hey Modernity – thanks for listening…

Hey Modernity

“Hey modernity – please get over yourself
And help me find myself”

“Hey modernity – you’re cool
But I don’t want to be you”

Hey modernity – I don’t need a crossing guard anymore
But I may need a guide up this treacherous mountain called life

Hey modernity – what you created was great
But I want something better – is that wrong?

Hey modernity – I don’t need anymore mature or moral supeer-irority
How about making it a priority to be a mature mentor, a seasoned peer?

Hey modernity – feeding your mind behind your unfolded daily dose of black and white reality is splendid
But reality for me is on a dynamic multi-colored screen that can have a mind of its own.

Hey modernity – I need you but don’t you need me?
Why are you yelling when you teach instead of crying?

Hey modernity – please don’t rip on my ripped jeans
I know you don’t understand but I bought them that way

Hey modernity – if you yell at me, you might lose your voice
If you give me apathy, I might turn to my toys.
If you scorn me, all I might hear is noise
If you detach from me, doesn’t that take away my choice?

Do you want a voice that isn’t noise that gives me a choice instead of my toys
Listen in, come on in, but please knock on the door
I don’t want you to be me – but will you be with me - where I'm at?

Will you read this unmetered poem
And wonder why I don't always bother to rhyme
Or dismiss my rebellious adolescence and wait until I become sublime?

(sublime = of high moral or intellectual value; elevated in nature or style; "an exalted ideal")

I need you to be you
I want you to be you
But I will never be you.

Hey modernity - I'm postmodern
I guess that means that I'm post-you
Ten years ago I never thought I would post about being "post"
Did you?


-Nathan Smith (kind of)

Tobiaaaas and Naaaate - Part 3 - facebook pollination with the blogosphere

Tobias: hey nate, here are my thoughts. feel free to disagree. The more western society becomes dependant upon the logic of 19th century criticism, the more people will divorce themselves from the 'evangelical solutions' found within modern apologetics. Essentially, the church will be forced to accept a theory of blind faith in trying to reconcile the internal and historical ambiguities resulting in apparent theological inconsistencies.

What i've noticed nate is that the questions are getting tougher and every century the church is finding it hard to provide sufficient explanations not for the existence of God, but for the claim that Christianity provides that quintessential element to spiritual fullfilment. Prevarication and the unpopularity of Christianity in mwc is largely the result of the church providing insufficient evidence to provide valid answers (and even solutions) to lifes contradictions.

The post modern solution is to increase transparency; affirm the humanity of the church and admit its philisophical handicaps. But then, where does the church go from here? some explanation is needed to delieneate these apparent weakness and ambiguities. Remember, who are audience is.



Nate: As in Scripture - we are taught to respond to the activity of God, not generate it, apologize for it, encaspsulate it, etc... The only one who was, is and will be and can handle living in the past, present and future is the Trinity - we are incapable of that so we are called to live in the present only. Room for existentialism? There has to be? Should we acquiesce to it? Nope - don't have to. The Church is an embodied image that has its existence and being based upon a contingent Person - all we can do is be responsive (which doesn't mean uncreative or unimaginative) it just means that nothing is new under the sun of the cosmos - so is it our fault that we don't know everything. Our reality is not filled with a void of God but a super-saturation hyper-presence that invokes all of the ambiguity that we can handle. That ambiguity then becomes a "positive" ambiguity that provides us with the paradoxes that seem to rail against our existence but in actuality our existence

...as fallen created creatures (imago Dei) rails against the paradoxes because they exist in our perception as the reality of God's existence and therefore - we respond to them - we don't own them, we can't control them and we aren't responsible to explain them all - only to respond and participate in ambiguity.

Therefore the paradoxes that produce ambiguity are "positive" from God's point of view because they create a longing for something "more" beyond our circumstance and knowledge - something that only God can satisfy, but never completely. New Heaven, New Earth = uninihibited learning and exploration of truth without the "negative" effects of the fall. Paradoxes will will be the school of learning becuase fear will not exist and yet today paradoxes produce fear and a sense of not being in control. That is the human condition that perpetuates manipulation and sinful rebellion - not being in control. Therefore the postmodern condition has elevated the "positive" aspect of our finite limitations as humans but also has made it possible to be convicted in our hearts of the rage that we have against our fallen condition. We know that we can discover through the trajectory of paradoxes, but are unable to be leashed upon those paradoxes because of our innumerable frustrations with the...

(we are no longer able to be okay with paradoxes as a result of the Fall, but only in sin not as image bearers who still have undeniable imprints of God's image upon us, regenerate or unregenerate. Though the regenerates have a better advantage to reverse the Fall's effect in the here and now, though not exclusively. But after the new humanity begins, we will be okay with paradox as a result of our redeemed imago Dei. Paradox and ambiguity will not disappear but we will be able to desire it as source of education and discovery without walls. This gives new meaning then to the Lord's prayer in that we are called to bring the reality of Heaven to Earth and bring God's will to a broken planet, not just justice, mercy and righteousness but right learning, thinking and the discovery of the "other" as it pertains to Creation, ourselves, fellow humanity and the Trinity.)

limitations that Adam placed upon us through his sin and the inability to explore truth with hearts ablaze for it and a capacity to discover it at every turn. Our dormant discovery potential is what is railing against our present fallenness and the desire to know God, not fully, but in full capacity of our God given ability to know Him (which will never be exhausted but has the ability to be unhindered) is the desire of all mankind and yet we are inhibited and hate it because we are capable of so much more. Postmodernity says "there is more, never give up and never be fully satisfied and humble yourself under your limitations but don't give up on discovery and the exploration and necessary moving our your moorings." Modernity says, "here are the answers, don't ask unnecessary or flitting questions, accept the system, fit your part into the machine, there is a cause and there is an effect, it's that simple, why don't you just accept it and then go into the sleep or slumber of apathy,

play your role and then just die?"


Inductive thesis: The New Humanity in the New Heaven and Earth needs to be okay with eternal internal contradictions, tension and paradox - it is the eternal perpetual state of perfection to always be learning truth. Truth is a Person - the discovery of any person is an inexhaustable well of discovery that our hearts really long to keep discovering. If you ever finished discovering your wife - you would cease to long for her in some aspect or maybe in total. The new humanity will be in the constant flux of discovery through paradox, experience, teaching and interaction with the Logos and His Community of which we've been invited into. We are therefore called to that which produces longing; but confusion was introduced in the Fall and truth became juxtaposed to its opposite - deception. No longer does the world long for truth as a discovery but they mourn the inability to do so rightly and therefore embrace deception from the sinful desire to be in control. (certitude vs. assurance)

Addendum: Mundus vult decipi - the world wants to be deceived (Walter Kaufmann). It's a much easier life as in a baby who sees a rattle in front of their face. Then when the rattle is taken from their face - the rattle no longer exists, until it is brought into the scope of their vision again. You see, the reality of the rattle is only cognizant from their perspective. This smacks of the complaints of postmodernism more than postmodernism accounts for. Modernism say that the problem is that p.m.'s claim truth is relative. P.m.'s claim that modernists believe that truth is only relative if it affects them or they can see it or believe from a verified source of authority. P.m. says that there are truths and levels of reality out there that we aren't aware of and as a result we are situated in a relative cicumstance that doesn't allow us to access all that can be known and therefore we are incredibly limited and small in the broad scope of reality and we need the "other" more than ever before. God hasn't given you everything you need to have to understand reality but He has given you all that is needed to be introduced to the Person of Truth wherein reality lies, but it then loses its focii on propositions and becomes an adventerous discovery of who Truth is as a person and then and only then can propositions be formulated. But any formulation of proposistions about Truth are subject to the continual pattern of Truth's forward momentum of discovery - therefore creating a lifestyle for us of a hermeneutical spiral - reconfiguring our belief system based upon being introduced to a new element that effects all of my known reality. Modernity claims that we know enough and we have the tools to know enough and there doesn't need to be much more said about it or there doesn't need to be any more major changes - only remodeling the existing structure as is needed. (This is anti-Biblical and doesn't follow the flow of redemptive history as it has progressed and continues to do so.)

Modernity is the baby with the rattle who believes in presuppositionalism but not in the limitless possibilities that exist beyond them and the presuppostions they've been offered. The reality to them is that the rattle only exists because it came into the view of their perspective. Once it is gone, it is irrelevent. P.M. says that there is a reality that exists beyond my perspective that I cannot contain explain or ignore and it has an effect upon my perspective that I cannot control, whether larger or great. It has an effect that I am unable to account for - therefore I need the "other" and I cannot fully account for reality from my perspective.

This is seen in the example of the blind men who are situated around the body of an elephant and are called upon to describe the elephant as an elephant. All of them will have a different perspective and diagnosis of truth on their own, but together they can describe most of what that elephant is like. The Fall created a rift in those relationships so that each blind man argues with the "other" blind man about the reality of his elephant and what it actually looks like as well as with the Creator of the elephant. The reversal of that is to bring each blind man back into fellowship with each other and with the Creator of the elephant - the ministry of reconciliation so that they can describe the elephant, though incompletely and not altogether coherent, they are able to do so much more together than on their own along with the aiding and direction of the illusive yet hyper-present Creator of the elephant. It would be impossible for the Creator of the elephant to give an exhaustive explanation and inutitive tacit knowledge of the elephant to the blind men, becuase then they would be equal in their existence, ability and power as it corresponded to the Creator of the elephant. The longer they spend with each other and the elephant the better descriptors they can come up with.

There is also the aspect of the understanding of my reality being on a continuum of discovery interconnected with my ability to be more aware and more mature in dealing with my awareness (maturity/life experience/ experiential tacit knowledge).

So is truth relative or is your cirumstance relative to truth (as whole)?

Who then is the real relativist, the one who recognizes that there is a reality beyond their perspective and seeks to honor that reality instead of just their own available perspective or is it the one who only acquiesces to that which has entered their perspective and can be contained within their field of vision. Reality to the second person is only that which is then centered upon their field of vision and their ability to describe what should be believed based upon their field of vision.

The question then is, are we responsible for that which is not available to our perspective? - the p.m. bellows YES because it requires us to depend upon the "other" and produces a lifestyle that has to exist in the place of need and dependence upon the "other" and can never exist in isolation.

The modernist claims that if there is a different perspective than their own, it exists to either be disagreed with, destroyed, as an antagonist to help me build my protaginism (strengthen my condition based upon on the challenge but weakness of yours) or as a perspective that I might have to obey, aquiesce to or completely shift towards while losing most or all of what distinguished my prior perspective and afforded me my differentiation from the "other".

P.M. says, Keep your differentiation, but bring it to the table of dialogue and discovery and let it contribute to the whole of reality that is beyond us all in our perspectives, positions, and situated circumstances. This is one of the most pertinent forms of reconciliation that our world needs to discover as it pertains to the Kingdom of God. With this we can invest in a kingdom that we participate in but is beyond our own selves instead of building our own kingdom securely in order to distinguish ourselves as better and more in touch with Reality than the "other." None of us has that advantage.

Who then is in danger of being the real relativist and which form of relativity is the most dangerous - honoring it, ignoring it, fighting against it, becoming apathetic towards it, etc...?

God is sovereign and controls the flow of history as well as what is unfolding now as it hasn't ever before. Can we trust Him to do that among us and allow Truth to be what it is on its own terms?

Future considerations:

1. Why did Adam, Eve and Lucifer choose to deceive themselves when there wasn't any brokenness as a propensity to deal with? They just chose to disobey out of a perfect and unbroken relatedness to God.

Nate and Tobias or Nate vs. Tobias - crackilatin' on fasheezy bookmeezy

Nate: emphasis on "the" ? (the eschaton)


Tobias: I say 'the' in defiance of the spiritual or preterist view marking modern eschatalogy. My conviction is still bent on that one cataclysmic event marking the consumation of time and history. In essence, i still believe in a future apocalypse and the literal return of Christ second comming (not rapture).


Nate: I;m with you baby. The Day of the Lord as it is developed in the prophets is something that I've been hitting since the beginning of the year but it has so many dimensions to it. Desolation and reward, etc.... very interesting stuff. This isn't the stuff that is easy to discuss with people.


Tobias: You're right, its not easy to discuss. But as a friend and great prophet once said, "we have to learn to embrace the ambiguities." - Nathan Smith...: )

miss you bro



Nate: Check this out - Kierkegaard wrote about paradoxes (ambiguity) and said, "The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo."

This is an excerpt from the book, An Emergent Manifesto of Hope and the chapter is called, Orthoparadoxy in place of orthodoxy/orthopraxis. Excellent stuff!

The Trinity is the best example of orthoparadoxy!

My way of existing conveys my final answer. - Levinas or as Jacques Ellul put it, "The movement of faith is unceasing because no explanation it offers is ever finished." That's from the prophets as it relates to eschatological fulfillment.

"It would seem very strange that Christianity should have come into the world just to receive an explanation" - Kierkegaard



Tobias: ....

Tobias vs. Nate or Tobias and Nate...more forthcoming

Tobias: "He's so dope - better than the pope, better than soap on a rope, better than a Republican hope (ful)...."

Dude, i'm a start callin you "pastor run dmc". You're one hilarious brother. we miss you man. I hear through the grapevine you're a pastor now. Never would have pictured it, but you definetly have the gift to gab : )

love and respect chief

Nate: Tobi, hit me wit your digitees before I get real figitee and call up some killer midget please - like that one cheesee maneez?

Tobias: Platinum brother : )

Nate: bro, I hope you didn't miss the locution in your perlocution - I want your PHONE NUMBER so that I can find out how ya'll are doing. I just had George, Drena and Mark here overnight. Was good to see them. He said that you and him had time together. I sang your praises with him and he told me you guys were off to Portugal maybe. Blessings bro!

Tobias: hey nathan, since you like to rhyme, i thought i'd send my digits so we both can shine, on the telephone. sINCE thats where we belong. Speaking the-a-logicly in a diffrent tong! dangggggg! that boi snapped (:

Nate: let me excuse myself so I can go put that on the shelf, I rock hard but that's too much wealth - you gotta stop ma man before your cheddar becomes that rockafella - and you forget alllllllll us small people. Holla...

Tobias: I'll have to do an exegesis on that last rhyme, you sorta blew my mind. so until next time, continue to shine, like a penny or a dime, because my women is fine, and she says 'hey nate, dont playa hate'

peace : )

love you bro

Nate: ...

competition vs. composing

Competition vs. Forming others (composing)

outlets for our training vs. competition with peers. If we focus on developing ourselves


People want you to be yourself and not what they expect you to be

We are named by those who are not of us; we do not name ourselves.

Jackie boy

“If you’re ever stuck in some thick undergrowth, in your underwear, don’t stop and think of what other words have ‘under’ in them, because that’s probably the first sign of jungle madness.”

—Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey

Africa Emerging

This is an excerpt from a Brian McClaren website that I found. It explains so much of what I saw when I was there. There are going to be just as many disillusioned Christians over there as there are over here. What will be the next phase of mission? What will it look like? Will it be moored in the foundations of the traditional Church that preaches salvation by faith alone and wants to get bigger buildings built...read on as he begins with a question about the Church...




"Is that gospel a message of evacuation – how God will airlift some of us out of this world and its problems, how God wants us to huddle in a holy warehouse between now and then, enjoying blessings and the joys of a church subculture? Or is that gospel a call to incarnation and transformation, to live out the message of God’s kingdom so we, like salt and light, like yeast in bread or seeds in soil, bring new possibilities to our world?"



Benny Hinn posters everywhere. “We like Benny Hinn,” a Ugandan member of parliament told me. “He gives our people hope. They feel that they are locked in poverty, but Benny tells them that God can bless them.” What if their hopes are raised at the crusade and then nothing changes? I ask. “Then they are disillusioned,” he adds, implying that their post-crusade disillusionment is no worse than their pre-crusade despair. I see his point, but still wonder

A Ugandan man tells us that the ever-present local Benny wannabe’s promise healing from HIV if only the infected will give the “man of God” their car or home or property. When they “sow their seed” and the promised healing or prosperity doesn’t come, a backlog of disillusioned people accumulates. Sometimes they become angry, so the prosperity preachers have to spend some of their own prosperity on armed guards. TIA.

In Nairobi, our group visited two slums, the famous Kibera (featured in “The Constant Gardener”), and a smaller but equally poor “second hand slum” nearby. A small Pentecostal church of about 60 people, City Harvest, led by Pastor Charles, does more in these slums than many “prosperity churches” of multiple thousands, incarnating the gospel in the form of an HIV clinic and support groups in the slums for those living with AIDS. One afternoon, our group of about 20 gathered in a tiny, dark, corrugated tin hut, one dead light bulb hanging from the ceiling, the only illumination coming in through the open door and from the half-circles where tin meets tin. We listened to stories of women living with HIV, single and abandoned mothers bearing burdens none of us can imagine, and we could hardly talk, eyes brimming and throats choked up not simply by sadness, but also by beauty: at least one church is here, we thought. At least one pastor and those he has trained care and walk among these people in this black muck and desperate need, and that is beautiful beyond words.

Two nights later, I was with a group of about a dozen young Kenyans at the opposite end of the spectrum: lawyers, doctors, business owners, engineers, teachers, workers with NGO’s. I could have been with any group of young adults in Stockholm, London, Santiago, Seattle, or Boston. Too often, the conventional church was no longer working for these educated young Africans. It focused on getting souls saved, building bigger buildings, and attracting bigger crowds, but its gospel ignored the systemic injustice, corruption, poverty, violence, and suffering in which these young adults had come of age. One young woman told me, “I work at an NGO that is staffed by young Kenyans like myself. All of us grew up in the church, but not one of my colleagues identifies himself as a Christian. They call themselves agnostics or atheists. But it is the god of the personal prosperity gospel that they have rejected. Their desire to make a difference shows that they really have faith in a God that nobody talks about – the God who cares about justice, poverty, oppression, and suffering.”
..
Back in Uganda, a young woman talks with me. She too has been to college, and she too loves God but is seeking for an understanding of the gospel and church that makes more sense in today’s Africa. “Do you really have hope that the church can change?” she asks. “Yes,” I tell her, and recount stories of churches that are living out a transformational, incarnational, integral gospel around the world. She doesn’t smile. She’s seen too many religious promises and too much religious hype and experienced too much disillusionment. She’ll wait and see if anything comes of our conference


Something will come. I could feel it as we sang and danced together with joy before God. The resilience of Africans is a sign of resurrection, a joy that moves the feet and a faith that can move mountains. The air vibrates with it, hums with it, like the cloud of dragonflies that hover around us as we walk together on red African soil.

Ad Fontes

In speaking with a friend who I find I have a lot in common with, we both discovered that there is a search that takes place in our hearts. It can be likened unto the early explorers who discovered the New World by following the flow of water. They came by ocean and some settled on the coast, they went up river and some settled by the river, they went further up to the waterfalls, and some settled there, they went even further up and discovered roaring rapids and some settled there. Some found streams and brooks and there they settled while others found lakes and settled there and still others found hidden tributaries and settled near there. All of us know that without water and its source, we cannot live and therefore cannot live far from it. I have seen that my passion leads me past the depth of the great lakes, the powerfully majestic and awe-inspiring waterfalls, past the serene and peaceful streams, past the expansive coastline, over the thunderous and frothing rapids. I want to go past and beyond the wide and surging undertow of the river. I want the source - the fount, the spring from whence this all flows. Where will that take me? - I just know that I cannot settle in the river valley, on the coastline, within the spray of falling water, or by the joyful brook edge. These are all wonderful places - many should desire these places - I know that I don't.

Pascal once wrote - "Finally, let them recognize that there are two kind of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all their heart because they do not know Him."


There was once a princess who grew up in a kingdom that had been ravished by decades of famines, war and plague. One night, as the princess slept she had a dream. In this dream she was walking through the market that lay by the sea, when a young beggar caught her eye. As she turned to face him the young beggar looked up, but before their eyes could meet the dream ended and the princess awoke. As the dream faded a haunting voice arose in her mind that informed her that if she were ever to meet this young man, he would shower her with riches beyond her wildest dreams.
This dream etched itself so deeply on the princess that she carried the vision deep in her heart, until one day, years later, as she walked through the market, her gaze caught hold of the same man who had visited her in her dreams all those years ago. Without pausing she ran up to him and proceeded to relay the whole vision. Never once did he look up, but when the princess had finished her story he reached into an old sack and pulled out a package. Without saying a word, he offered it to the princess and asked her to leave.
Once the princess reached her dilapidated castle she ripped open the package and, sure enough, there was a great wealth of pure gold and precious diamonds. That night she placed the package in a safe place and went to bed. But her mind was in turmoil and the long night was spent in sleepless contemplation. Early the next morning she arose, retrieved the treasures and went down to the water's edge. Once there she summoned up all her strength and threw the riches deep into the sea. After watching the package sink out of sight, she turned and without looking back went searching for the young beggar.
Finally she found him sitting in the shade of an old doorway. The princess approached, held out her hand and placed it under his chin. Then she drew his face towards hers and whispered, "Young man, speak of the wealth you possess which allows you to give away such worldly treasure without a moment's thought."



Peter Rollins in "How (Not) to Speak of God" believes that...

"The desire for transormation was itself (in the story) the means of transformation: the seeking after spiritual wealth was itself the evidence of this wealth's presence."

"Because God...can never be made utterly present, desire is never satisfied in God."

"...if we desire a new car, the desire is fulfilled in its possession: what was previously absent has been made present and thus has satisfied the void which desire had formed...God is never made present in this way: God's presence is always hyper-presence...this is analagous to the idea of a ship sunken...while the ship contains the water and the water contains the ship, the ship only contains a fraction of the water while the water contains the whole of the ship. Our saturation by God does not merely fill us but also testifies to an ocean we cannot contain...desire for God is born in God."

"In love we desire our beloved, indeed the presence of our beloved is that which sparks the desire. This is because the presence of the one we love testifies to the fact that what we know of them is only a fragment of what is still to be discovered...Augustine said, "For certainly nothing can be loved unless it is known...seeking God is not some provisional activity which precedes the goal of finding, but is itself evidence of having already found."

"Rather than desire being fulfilled in the presence of God, religious desire is born there...consequently a genuine seeking after God is evidence of having found...to seek God for eternal life is to seek eternal life, while to seek God for a meaningful existence is to seek a meaningful existence."

"A true seeking after God results fromn experience of God which one falls in love with for no reason other than finding God irresistably lovable. In this way the lovers of God are the ones who are most passionately in search of God."



While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.

When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. "Why this waste?" they asked. "This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor."

Aware of this, Jesus said to them, "Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her."

-Matthew

If I don't desire what I choose, I am religious
If I desire what I don't choose, I am spiritual
If I desire what I choose, I am visceral, I am me, I am alive...
I desire

I do not create my desire
I do not create my identity
I do not create the void
I do not create

I am to respond to that which is in me
I am to know that which is in me
I am to follow desire but not obey it
It will lead me to Him

If I don't live in the moment, I live in the past,
If I don't live in the past, I live into the future
If I don't live into the future, where am I living.
I want to be alive past anticipation and reflection.

Jesus knows the future
Jesus knows the past
Jesus is with me now
Jesus is...

To make a decision or not make a decision...

Lately there has been a lesson that I've been learning. I will turn 29 on Wednesday and I sense that I'm finally realizing that what I choose to do in life is my choice. I understand that God leads us and directs and gives us freedom and yet we somehow end up going in a direction that He leads. In the middle of all of this, I see that our decisions still matter infinitely. Significance isn't found in a position, a title, credentials, your family, your wealth, your years of service, your education, the respect you receive or the people who give it to you. It is found in the decision. Your every decision tells you that you have significance. God gives that to you and in so doing teaches you to take yourself serious and His love and will for your life serious, but it seems that He doesn't lessen our ability to be decision makers. How does that all work within His providence for us. I'm not sure but as I've grown into manhood, I have seen more and more emphasis put on making decisions. It's not only an issue of making good decisions, it goes beyond that into the issue of realizing that every decision matters and they seem to matter more and more.

I heard someone say "After 25, everything matters!" I believe that with the right nuance, that is so true. I just have to look down at my gut to face that. I was always a skinny bean pole as a child and teenager and in the middle of my early twenties, I started to notice how one actually gains weight. I'd never understood it before, but there it was and it had directly to do with my eating habits and lack of exercise. My decision began to matter. I used to be able to eat anything, but not anymore. I see that in all areas of my life increasingly so. God gives grace and allows some things to be covered over but decisions, both good and bad, will bear their own consequences, both good and bad.

That being true, I have also seen that never before has it been more important for me to give grace to myself and increasingly more to others. It's a decision to even receive grace in the midst of my own ugliness, and at times it can be a very difficult to decision to truly receive.

I have the privilege of studying Martin Luther and Jonathan Edwards on Mondays. As far as Luther is concerened, we are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. We aren't going to become shipwrecked, we are shipwrecked - that changes one's whole approach to life, but how? Good question - that's what life and sanctification is - answering that question.

Jonathan Edwards wrote, "I have affecting views of my own sinfulness and vileness, very frequently to such a decree as to hold me in a kind of loud weeping...so that I have been often obliged to shut myself up. I have had a vastly greater sense of my own wickedness and badness of my heart than ever I had before my conversion... It is affecting to think how ignorant I was, when a young Christian, of the bottomless, infinite depths of wickedness, pride, hypocrisy, and deceit left in my heart."

This was written 20 years after his decision to follow Christ. He said that his heightened awareness of sin results in a "...heart [that] will grow in tenderness." Out of that tenderness flows a profound gratitude to God for His mercy, a thankfulness that can only be expressed through service to Him.

I see that the "choice" is still ours in how we respond. As I journey through this time in my life, I want to see the decisions that I make really reflect what I believe, because if I don't, then I really believe that my decisions don't matter or that it will "all come out in the wash." As much as grace is a reality in all of this, so are my decisions and the weight that they carry. I believe that the more influence I receive, the more stewardship that I'm called to and the more people I am able to lead, the more my decisions will matter and that so, until I die. Whoa! That's a lot to think about, but it's necessary. I guess it's what they call growing up. I think in ages past, a man my age would have been expected to be married, to have a family, a job and a lot more responsibilities. As long as that is put off, I have time to think about all of this and in our culture today, many have a lot more time to think about their major life decisions and daily decisions it seems.

just some musings of mine...

something!

I felt like I should write something, but I'm not sure what to write. I did watch a film called, "trade" the other night about the sex trafficking trade in America and was distraught with the horrible wrongs that take place each and every day in our own country that seem so barabaric and insidious and horrific. I still like telling jokes and laughing but I think it is because I need it more - the more I see the reality of the world we live in. A good dose of the BBC or CNN with some Mr. Bean or the Simpsons and then some Dick Van Dyke to wrap it all up - that must be the good life...

There must be more!

A faith community gathers to search for God because there must be more. They gather to search alongside each other and some are called to play different roles within the scheme of that search. They want to introduce the world around them to that hunger.

shepherds are there to lead them to where neither of them have been, to lead them to where both of them need to go.

The search for more shouldn’t be led by someone who has the more to offer you. Luther has said that "every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying."

No one can give you enough advice or direction for you to have enough of what is actually “more.” What is more can only be offered by our Savior, by our Father. A pastor who gives too many answers doesn’t lead his people to something more but towards something that he’s already arrived at. There is nothing wrong with teaching what one has come to understand but it shouldn’t be the arrival or point of orientation, it should be the place that helps us on our journey to “more”, both as a community and as individuals. Do you want more, then don’t look for it from a man or a woman and don’t trust a man or a woman in order to lead you there primarily, let your hunger lead you there and don’t be satisfied with what the man or woman offers, but at the same time we must not be against what they are able to do that better enables us and our community to be lead to more. If the question is one of hunger or lack of it, then ask yourself, have I been taught or conditioned to have an appetite for something that is not meant to satisfy my real hunger, like a big plate of rice that fills but only leaves one hungering for true substance all over again. Eventually that plate of rice will lead the person to diabetes and a destructive future in regards to their health - though it does provide a filler for the immediacy that we all desire. Many can't eat anything but rice because they have never been taught or offered fruits, vegetables, meat, a balanced diet or they think it impossible and out of their reach. You can tell them to eat more wheat and fruit, but they will do what is easiest and most available, they will eat rice. We should never be satisfied with what is immediate but only find satisfaction in where ourselves and our community is going as long as it leads to “more.” Not more of what we've been "filling" ourselves with but "more" of what we know in our deepest core will really satisfy. We may not know what that actually looks like or what it is, but we should know that it is "more." I really believe that we are born with an appetite for "more", it may just take some time and some wrestling to find it but I don't want to give up and settle. What about you?

Been gone!

I haven't blogged in a long time. Most people don't know about my blog because it changed its name due to an effort to make it more accessible - which has left it less acessible. Anywho, I'm still alive and as it has it, I am not an associate pastor at a Church in the area that I'm living in. The Church's name is Life Community Church and it used to be called Cumberland Baptist Church. I never in all my childhood or teenage life or on into my young adult life wanted to or thought I would be a pastor. For me the thought was like wanting to be a Nazi. That is kind of harsh you say - well you're right except that it how distasteful if was for me to think of becoming a pastor and how far I was away from the idea. I had a hard time even imagining myself as one, except in the moments when I pictured myself up in front of a lot of people, yelling at them what I really thought of them. I did that once or twice and found out that people don't like to be yelled at. My journey into the pastorate wasn't a professional choice or a life calling as much as when I was confronted by my own fallenness. You see, I would hear preachers and speakers talk about those who experienced suffering and pain and how the Holy Spirit comforts those people ( I still don't know how that works other than if you really believe it ) and how God forgives sinners, etc... but what I didn't understand or know about was what God did with people who caused pain to others and didn't care at times if they were forgiven or not. I'll be honest, I have felt like that and wondered about what God thought of me in the process. I rarely felt like I did things right, pleased God with my attitude, spent enough time in prayer, Bible reading or silent meditation or was kind to people. As a teenager, I wanted to know what God did with people like me who just felt sinful on a constant basis and didn't feel good enough to be in ministry. It always seemed that I was on the bottom of the barrel when it came to good enough. So, the thought of being a pastor, was the furthest thing from my mind.

Then I heard the most captivating sermon of my life, the sermon that will for all time go down as my favorite sermon of all time. It was a first person narrative of the story of Hosea and Gomer, the prophet who married a prostitute and who loved her even despite her infidelity. I knew what it felt like to be a Gomer and I'd never really heard this part of God preached or taught before. It tore through all the crap of legalism and be "good enough" that I'd been pressured with and taught to believe and showed me the utter depths of God's love because He had gone to the utter depths of my ugly heart - places that even I hadn't gone to. As I've grown and understood how dark my sin really is, I arrive at caverns in my heart that freak me out, places that horror stories are made of - ones that make you sick to your stomach. You know what I found there, little markings on the wall of someone who'd been there already. Footprints and flashes of light that gave me the circumference of the dark caverns of my heart. The deeper I trod through these caverns the more fear I was blanketed with and yet I could see that someone had gone before me - and they weren't lost - they had gone this route on purpose. At one point, I had to stop because the fear and loathing of turning the next corner was too much to handle and yet I could see that the One that had gone ahead of me, had gone still farther. I can only imagine that next time I need to go farther but no matter how far I go, I don't think I'll ever get to the bottom and I know if I did, that One would have been there already.

There's a freedom in knowing that I can traverse the landscape of my life, but the freedom dims when I have to go spalunking into the taverns of my heart where fear is the air I breathe. I can't see, it's pitch black and yet each time I've ventured knowing I needed to go, I've seen that Someone was already there. In that I find comfort. I can only think of Gandalf and his deep righteous voice as it cascaded across the mines of Moria's great hall - "You shall not Pass!" as He unwincingly stared down the Balrog. For that moment there was more strength seen in him than ever before but the real strength was found in what no one saw - when he was leached to the demon and fell into the deepest caverns of the earth where evil exists unheard of and fought the Balrog only to triumph where none had triumphed before. He came out victorious. He had to go there because He was Gandalf. Jesus is my Gandalf, He is my unseen friend in the caverns of my heart - the one who has gone before me and I know no other who could do so or would do so.

Part of being a shepherd for people is leading down the caverns of their hearts to show them how far Jesus really has gone. I've seen the ugliness of my heart, I just wish I hadn't acted it out so much, but my regret is only an ode to forgiveness if it is anything. I can't excuse sin but I don't care if I do at this point because that is not the point. The point is that we all have caverns that we are afraid to descend into, but without the descent, we can't see how far He's really descended for us. Grace has to answer whatever we discover about ourselves. It has to otherwise it is not real. If we are to discover that grace, then we are called to descend at points in our lives - not all the time and not without hope but we are called to descend. I hope that as a shepherd, I may be able to call people not only away from their sin but to face it head on, each difficult step down into their caverns. There, I believe they will find grace - the grace that answers what they fear and eclipses their fear with a warm vat of overflowing goodness, a bath of God's goodness to melt into while the fear dissipates into the cold past. I guess knowing that Christ has gone that far down makes me think of what will call us from the surface. I still like to hang out on the surface where the light is bright and the company feeds my ego, but I know I'm called downward at times. I just don't want to go, so should I repent? If I want grace I'll go.