journal : : field notes
Article Alert!
I have an article out, via the
Relevant Network Leader Newsletter. It's a response to a previous newsletter article, entitled,
Why I Am NOT An Emergent Christian. Read that first, then read my response below and let me know what you think. This dialogue has actually led to a wonderful email discussion between myself and the author of the 'NOT' article. It's been very beneficial for the both of us. Enjoy!
"As I read Traynor Hansen's heartfelt meditation on emerging Christianity, I feel compelled to respond. I respond not to start a war of words, but to merely offer a different angle on the emerging movement.
With that said, I want to commend Traynor on his commitment to his local congregation, in spite of the difficulties. He is right to critique those who abandon their local congregations for something that they may "get more out of" or enjoy more. We have far too many church shoppers looking for more smoke and light effects. He's also right to point out the importance of our spiritual heritage and tradition. We too often neglect our history at our own detriment.
While I whole-heartedly affirm his views, I think they are misdirected. Emerging Christians, in his implied opinion, have left traditional venues for a type of church that's more hip. . . "
(Continue reading the article in its entirety
here.)
Labels: writing
Rocky Mountain High...
I'm off tonight to Denver, CO with Bekah and Ben for a little work and a little R&R. We'll be bunking with our good friends Tim and Kristi Knipp, and Joel and Hillary Newton. Here's a rough sketch of the weekend:
Labels: personal
ugh
I hate posting stuff like this. It's not fun...and it's a downer. But please pray for my alma mater,
Taylor University. There was a
fatal car crash last night, killing students and staff, injuring students and staff. Sorry to be so blunt, but there's no other way to put it. I didn't know any of the students personally, but I did know some of the staff. Please pray for the families of those involved in the accident, and also pray for our
VOX community. There are a number of close connections to this accident, and we have some people grieving hard. Death sucks...fortunately we don't grieve as those who have no hope.
Labels: personal
Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day...
In honor of "Take Your Daughters and Sons to Word Day", I thought I'd post a shameless plug of my cute bruiser of a boy,
Benjamin. He's such a little stud!
Should I take him to
work today? Well, I could...but I wouldn't exactly be able to call it WORK. As soon as Ben would enter the building, he would demand (with ample grunting and bodily squirming) to be put down to explore. He would then walk all over the offices, and jabber to the women, do a little flirting, and then he would climb up the stairs at least 3 times, and then he would walk into my office and destroy that stack of papers that I should've filed a month ago, and then he would try to climb my coat tree and fall down and get ticked and yell for a minute, and then he would see what the heaviest thing in my office was and then try to pick it up...by then he'd be hungry for some bananas and cheerios, plus a bottle of milk.
You get the picture. Luckily, given the unique complexities and randomness of the pastor vocation, Ben is able to be with us a lot at
VOX stuff. He's basically the VOX mascot, and if I try to have deep, spiritual meetings with our Leadership Forum...he never fails in trying to upstage me with his jabbering. He literally will talk and talk until everyone in the rooming has lost focus on boring ol' Dad and are now completely focused on him. I love my boy...
Labels: personal
Hump Day Randomness...
1.
I've updated this blog a bit. I've added a
blogroll link, a whole bunch of feeds, and a
mapstats link, which shows all of the current readers locations around the globe. Check out the
blogroll link to see what I look at each day.
2.
Speaking of blogrolls, let me highly recommend
BlogLines. It's a really easy way to consolodate all of your blogs of interest, and a much, much, much faster way to see who has updated their page. So convenient...and FREE.
3.
If you don't subscribe to Relevant Magazine, skip on to #4. If you do, be sure to read the latest issue, especially the interview with
Derek Webb. Fascinating stuff...and surprisingly candid. Relevant tries to walk a fine line of conservatism and cultural relevance, and this interview/articles pushed things a little farther than they are usually willing to go. (I had a very candid quote by Augustine on the church edited out of an article I wrote for them, for example).
4.
For those of us who grew up in non-liturgical circles, we aren't very versed in the ancient Christian Calendar. I stumbled upon an
online Christian Calendar that helps me figure out what my mainline, Catholic, and Orthodox brothers and sisters are talking about.
5.
Pray for Nepal. . . the situation sucks, and I have a number of friends/acquaintances whose ministries are suffering due to the chaos. But the brunt of the suffering is being felt by the people, caught in the middle of a stupid power struggle between the commies and the king's cronies. You can read a recent news story on the chaos
here.
6.
It's always scary to see a TV news story about a bombing in a place you've been. While studying in Israel during college, I spring broke it in Dahab Egypt. It's a sleepy little hippie beach town, where more weed is smoked per capita than any other place in the world (not an official stat, but I'm just guessing), and you can get a 4 course meal on the beach while reclining under a thatch hut for about $4. It's not the first bombing that's occurred in a place that I've been, but every one hits hard.
7.
Invisible Children will be featured on Oprah. Apparently enough people emailed, wrote, called, and bugged Oprah to the point where she couldn't say no. The official
Global Night Commute is this Saturday night. Join the nearly 40,000 night commuters in the movement.
Labels: personal
Energy Pop Quiz...
Q: Which company holds the record for the most money earned in any year...ever.
A: Exxon Mobil
Q: Which company's one year earnings equaled the GDP of Croatia?
A: Exxon Mobil
Q: Which company made more than $116 million PER DAY in the 2005 fiscal 4th quarter?
A: Exxon Mobil
Q: Which company is pushing a huge nationwide ad campaign in defense of their ridiculous profits in an era of rising energy costs?
A: Exxon Mobil
Super fun quiz, eh? We've been duped, plain and simple. The big oil companies are making bank, all the while convincing the masses that they can't control the higher energy prices. Consider yourself provoked...
Labels: politics
The Truth Hurts...
Labels: politics
Legos & Logos
For those of you who have once (or many times) said, "
I'd read the Bible if it had more pictures." Your wish is Brendan Powell Smith's command. This guy has taken most of the well-known stories of Scripture and created accompanying lego depictions of the story. It's called
The Brick Testament.
Warning: due to the grapic nature of Scripture, there are some graphic (albeit 'lego graphic') images. There's a rating system for each set of stories, and I'd encourage you all to use it at your own discretion.
From the site, here is the purpose of the Brick Testament:
"to give people an increased knowledge of the contents of The Bible in a way that is fun and compelling while staying very true to the original versions. To this end, all stories are retold using direct quotes from The Bible."
This isn't a wholesale endorsement of the site...I'm not suggesting we pitch our pictureless Bibles. Just a very bizarre and interesting way to approach Scripture. Plus, legos are just plain fun...
Labels: emerging church, online
Article Alert!
There's a new site out devoted to the redefinition of Christianity. It's called
TheEmerge. I have an article up on their site, called
The Crux: A Holy Intersection. It's a post-Easter meditation on the cross. Read it, and then check out their site and their podcast. Oh yeah, submit your own article. Express your own written voice...
Labels: writing
Emergent Etymology
If any of you have ever wondered...where in the heck did the term 'emergent church' or 'emerging church' come from?
Dan Kimball (author of
The Emerging Church) has a post on the history of the term. You can find it
here. It's interesting to see how this movement came to be, it's current state, and where it's headed. What's also interesting is who was involved at the very initial stages of the movement. Guys like
David Crowder,
Mark Driscoll,
Doug Pagitt,
Tony Jones, and
Brian McLaren, et al.
Regardless of one's views on the emergent church, it's fascinating to see how a movement develops, from a small group of unknown, out of the box thinkers, to a significant catalyst for paradigm shift in church as we now know it.
Labels: emerging church
A new/old article...
I have another article up on Relevant's website. You can check it out
here.
It's kind of strange... I wrote this thing over a year ago and completely
forgot about it. I'm either one of those artists whose work isn't
appreciated until it's acquired over time, like fine wine (doubtful).
Or Relevant was hard up for some material (more likely).
Regardless, enjoy!
(I've got another with them coming out soon...stay tuned)Labels: writing
Journey to the Cross
To remember and experience the beauty and passion of Holy Week, the community I pastor (
VOX) set up a Labyrinth inspired by the stations of the cross. Check out some pics (more will be added later, included image files of all the signs we used) on the VOX flickr page
here.
Labels: emerging church, jesus
He is risen...he is risen indeed!
"Faith is to believe what we do not see,
and the reward of this faith
is to see what we believe."
--St. Augustine--
(hat tip: Jordon Cooper)
Labels: jesus
At the escalator waiting...
Today we wait. Today we hope...
(hat tip:
Ben Bell)
Labels: jesus
Randomness on Passover
I feel like my head's in a million different places right now. For being a week that is 'set apart', Holy Week sure is busy for a pastor like me. Regardless, it's a special day: Passover! I'm looking forward to our church's Seder celebration. Here's a glimpse into my noggin:
Yesterday: Trip to three colleges with our church's scholarship committee (
Anderson,
Indiana Wesleyan, and
Taylor) In a few words: interesting and nostalgic. In a few more: It was fascinating to see three Christian colleges within a 60 mile radius of one another approach Christian higher education in three entirely different ways. Anderson was fun, as it brought back so many memories of my dating relationship with Bekah. It was great to visit my ol' stompin' grounds at TU, and it was unbelievable to witness the explosion of development at IWU. Fun fact: IWU now has the largest enrollment of any private school in Indiana. They have more students than Notre Dame! (not all on campus, but including adult ed, online, satellite campuses, etc.) Weird...
Today: Last minute errands for the
VOX Labyrinth: Journey to the Cross on Saturday night. Excited about that for sure...I'll have pics up on flickr eventually.
This week: Technology...set up VOX with a
mySpace account,
a flickr account, and updated the
VOX blog. Also, working with my
brother on dressing up the VOX weekly e-newsletter, called the "VOX Haps". HTML baby! Also, going to be tweaking the
VOX website a bit. Stay tuned.
This week: Decision...Our
VOX Leadership Forum made the decision to swtich from Saturday nights to Thursday nights. Excited about that (I'll have my weekends back...sort of), but transitions suck.
This week: Reconnecting...I have my very own
mySpace account, which has been great for reconnecting with ol' Gridley High School (may it rest in peace) friends,
Taylor buds, and fellow
Denver Seminary alum.
This week:
Hebrew...trying to learn an ancient, dead, written language that reads from right to left, has an entirely different alphabet, and uses dots and other weird symbols to signify vowel sounds. Excuse me? What the heck is a daghesh lene? What are the begadkephat consonants? Why do kaf, mem, num, pe, and tsade look entirely different when they're placed at the end of a word, confusing the 'h', 'e', 'double hockey sticks' out of me? We'll see how this transpires. A ray of inspiration: Transliterated (yes, I mean 'transliterated')
my son's name from Hebrew (Benjamin, or Binyamin). Every cloud has a silver lining...
Currently: Listening...to
Sigur Ros' () album; trying to slow it down, to stay centered, to stay focused on the "Holy" in
'Holy Week'. Trying my best not to insert a four letter word after 'Holy'. Trying to stay rooted in the
Pesach Feast (Passover), trying to appreciate the fact that God passed over those whose doorframes were smeared with the blood of a lamb. Trying to live the fact that Christ was the ultimate fulfillment of Passover, as his blood, as the lamb of God, was smeared at calvary so that death would not have victory over me...or you...
Always: Trying
Labels: personal
Stop the genocide!
Labels: justice
Holy Week 2006
It's Holy Week '06! The most celebrated week of the Christian Calendar is here. As a pastor, I run the risk of being too busy to enjoy it, so I'm using the blogosphere as a method of slowing down, giving myself time to reflect.
In addition to some gospel reading, there are a few online resources I'm using for my holy week meditations (disclaimer: this is not an endorsement of every single theological detail of these resources):
- Seven Sayings--The ReJesus crew has a fantastic interactive experience based on the seven sayings of Jesus on the cross.
- Sacred Space--Daily guided prayer through Holy Week by the Jesuits. Great stuff...
Here's my Holy Week schedule:
- Monday (pm)--VOX Prayer Room, The Wherehouse
- Maundy Thursday/Passover--Church Passover Seder, 6:30pm, Founder's Hall
- Good Friday--Community Service, 1pm, AEMC
- Saturday--VOX Labyrinth Journey to the Cross, 6-9pm, The Wherehouse
- Easter Sunday--Sunday Morning Corporate Worship at AEMC
- Sunday Noon--Easter Feast with the family
What's your Holy Week schedule?
He is risen!
Labels: church
Writing updates...
Some of you have been asking me, "When's your next article coming out?" My reply: "Good question." I have a few out there trying to get a bite, and a few more in the hopper.
One reason for the writing siesta: I've started some additional grad work through
Gordon. I'm taking Biblical Hebrew...online. Am I crazy? I must be. I'll keep you posted on my Hebrew self education.
One article I'm currently wrestling with (writing for me is more like a wrestling match...usually I lose) is inspired by an ancient Chinese poem:
Go to the people
Live among them
Learn from them
Start with what they know
Build on what they have
But of the best leaders,
When their task is done
The people will remark
“We have done it ourselves”
Yeah...wow! Obviously, the poem has so much to teach us as Christians. I'm taking this poem and applying it to the mission of the church, pleading the case for contextualization. We'll see, how it turns out...
Labels: writing
One of the best album covers ever...
Aesthetically pleasing, and fun for the ears too!
A Hasidic Jew singing Reggae/Rap?
It sounds like a bad joke. But this guy is serious.
He can beat-box with the best of 'em!
His lyrics remind me of the Old Testament prophets:
What im fighting for
is worth far more than silver and gold
what im fighting for
is a chance to unite the past
when a brothers coming home at last
fighting together for lives
sons and daughters of abraham
lay down to a higher command
don't be tricked by the acts of man
gods wisdom revealed in a holy plan
a chance to unite the past
when a brothers coming home at last
fighting together for lives
Labels: music
Who is Scripture for?
The 'porn pastors' at
XXX Church have had a serious snafu with their New Testament project. Their goal: print a whole bunch of New Testaments with the cover seen here and pass them out at the porn shows they minister at. The problem: the publisher of said Bibles,
American Bible Society, won't print them. They refuse to. The XXX Church motto, "Jesus Loves Porn Stars", has become a truism that inspires all the servants of Christ that who want to think outside the box in terms of love, truth, and outreach.
Is it ironic that the American Bible Society's motto on their site, in large script, reads: "Good News for
Everyone"? Maybe it's more sad than ironic. Maybe it should instead read "Good News for Everyone...Except Porn Stars".
You can read Craig and Mike's (founders of XXXChurch) take
here. Needless to say, they aren't pleased. My take? It's tragic. Jesus loves porn stars. Period. Whether you want to admit it or not, He does. It's a true statement, based on beliefs that stem from a high view of Scripture. Is it scandalous? Absolutely. Grace is scandalous. Love that we don't deserve is scandalous. And it's not up to us to reign it in.
In an age where specialized Bibles abound (there's one for every age, every situation in life, every career, every hair color), it's now clear how far the publishing industry is willing to go. Fortunately, for you and me, Jesus went further....he spent his time with the prostitutes, the sinners, the sick, the disabled, the down and outs. It's too bad the keyholders to His printed Word aren't willing to follow him.
Labels: emerging church
Calling all dissidents!
For all the luddites, the revolutionaries, the activists, and the countercultural voices among us...there's an organization worth a look.
Adbusters is devoted to destroying empire, unifying the dissidents, and advancing the cause of sweeping social action. Their magazine is part print art, part philosophical musing, part tree hugging activism, and yet another part anit-commercialism. Their goal is to provoke, instilling a righteous anger within us to fight against the corporate greed, economic injustice, and materialism that pollutes our world. You may not agree with all their content, but you've gotta love their style and their passion. They are in your face, controversial, and enthralling. Check em out and try to keep your fist from raising in the air! Just a parting shot: Didn't Jesus come and start a revolutionary upheaval, shaking the status quo? Wasn't his message in your face, out there, and controversial? We've refashioned him into a diefied Mr. Rogers, too meek and mild to affect any real change...ENOUGH!
Labels: justice, mennonite
A Shameless Brother Plug...
My little brother (by two years, though he has a good two inches on me), Travis, has just revamped his webpage. Trav is a graphics design guru. Check him out
here. He does free-lance work, so if any of you need a logo, website, etc...he's your man.
Labels: personal
Jolly Ol' England!
Outside of Buckingham Palace (notice the gross couple making out lower left)
Outside of C.S. Lewis' and J.R.R. Tolkein's favorite pub.
In one of Oxford's oldest and most unique pubs, The Bear. There are no right angles anywhere in this pub, and the wall's are line with former students' ties, which are traditionally cut off upon graduation. The ties date back hundreds of years.
I love minis! They were all over the place...
Labels: personal
