Hello?

Does anyone read this anymore? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

Prayer...

I am not sure how things happen. Does God do things? Does God allow things? That leaves me with either a vindictive (in most cases) or indifferent God - neither of which I'm fond of. It's OK to ask those questions, I think, but whether or not God did something is missing the point. God, it seems to me, created humans for companionship... relationship. I don't know why the creator of all things needs a relationship, but he certainly wants to. Otherwise, what is with all the Jesus stuff? It's at least obvious that humans are created for relationship with each other.

So, if we're created for relationship with one another, what makes us think that it's any different with God? Where did God say that he is unreachable? Where did God say that he cannot be communicated with unless we are perfect? In Genesis we see that God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden... why? To deliver a list of dos and do nots? Probably not. To chastise Adam for something? I doubt it. The Hebrew concept of "knowing" in the firs passages of Genesis is not that Adam gave intellectual ascent to the concept of his wife and analyzed her - that is our concept of knowing, inherited from the Greeks. Adam "knew" his wife and she had a child. Unless reproduction worked differently then, this was pretty experiential "knowing." Jackie calls it an experiential knowledge - "yada." We are created in the Image of God, and we are relational. How have we come to exclude God as relational to us?

I believe that our relationships - friend to friend, husbands and wives, parents and children - all reflect aspects of God's character. God has all these perspectives and more. This sounds trite and cliche-ish, but you get to know people by spending time with them and talking to them... you experience them. Would your husband or wife not want to know when something is bothering you? Would you not want to talk to him or her and spend time with her or him if you had a problem with her or his behavior or attitude?

Why is it any different with God?

Certainly God is not a man (or woman). But I think that in our effort to systematize and analyze and understand everything - even our Creator - that we've missed a large part of God. That is, that he wants to be with us.

Of course, this gets murky when we talk about the sickness or death of one we love. It's hard to say "I will be subjected to God" when someone close to me has suffered and died, with me praying for their healing all the while. I don't think that changes the truth, though. God will do what God wills. However, he welcomes the questions, the cries, the screams. Did God give my pastor's wife (whom everyone loved, and who made a direct impact on my life, and for whom everyone prayed for) cancer? Did he allow her to get cancer twice, beat it twice, and then succumb the third time? I hope not, because I'm not interested in that God, and I want nothing to do with him. Ultimately, I don't know. What I do know, though, is that she died. I also know that in those times of grief and frustration and downright anger, God comes alongside us. He is not afraid of the anger. He is not afraid of the cursing. He is not afraid of the questions.

Job despaired for his very life, and cursed his mother's womb. He challenged God for a face-off. His friends gave him the conventional wisdom... "You must have some sin hidden somewhere." And Job maintained his innocence. Job takes every bit of his anger, his pain, his frustration, his loss, to God and basically tells God to just kill him. Of course, Job also gets a thundering response, too, and even a rebuke. But in the end, God says that Job did not sin in his questioning, his despair... I think that says a lot more than the prayer of Jabez.

What do you think?

Lewis, Tolkien... Church?

After hearing my girlfriend, her family, her best friend, and my coworkers extol the greatness of The Chronicles of Narnia movie, I developed an insatiable hunger to see it myself. I already had a bit of a craving, but after their reports, I became hungry. So, to try and abate this hunger, I read a couple of critic's reviews of it, which in the end only served to make the hunger almost unbearable. The first one was pretty harsh on the film (this person was probably predisposed to disliking it). The next, however, written by Roger Ebert, was particularly fascinating. Not only did he give a favorable review, but he seemed to understand, or at least be aware of, the Christian undertones and morals (or whatever) that Lewis wrote into the movie. But that is not the only reason why it was fascinating. This was the major reason:

"C. S. Lewis, who wrote the Narnia books, and J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote the Ring trilogy, were friends who taught at Oxford at the same time, were pipe-smokers, drank in the same pub, [and] took Christianity seriously..."

Now, I am not given to pipe-smoking or drinking, but this sounds very attractive to me. This sounds more like fellowship to me than 300 people gathered in one building singing the same song and listening to same sermon week after week. Two friends sharing a drink and dinner sounds much more friendly than church does. So, I started wondering...

Why are we doing church on Sunday? I acknowledge that it is the day that our Christian culture has accepted as the day to gather together and worship, and that it may or may not have something to do with a day of rest (Sabbath). But really, how many of us honestly rest on Sundays? Growing up, Sunday morning was often stressful... getting everyone up and ready in their "Sunday Best" and then rushing around in the afternoon to spend 'family time' before church in the evening. Did God really call us to this? Forget forsaking the gathering together of the 'brethren'... there are times when we downright hate it.

My point is this: Who says we have to go to 'church' to have church? Why does it have to be 300 people shouting or weeping or (in many cases) just sitting there? Why do we have to have intro-worship music-sermon (with some alterations)? I am starting to feel like Brian McLaren in his introduction to 'A New Kind of Christian' where he says that these questions are starting to scare him. It is scary. I wonder sometimes if I'm off my rocker and so is everyone else that is thinking these thoughts. What's even more terrifying is that this may be God leaning on me...

Any opinions?

nodes: part II

in my quest to continue to explore this hazy notion in my head of a different point of view i had a thought this week in my Sunday School class. the question was brought up as to why the sinner/heathen/uncircumcised philistine prospered while the god fearing seemed to be wallowing around in poverty. well the typical answer is that if we judge success/blessing on worldly value then we have already missed the boat. and then the second typical response is that god knows what we can handle and that those with money are can overcome the temptation and that the poor would not be able to handle it. now this can be shot down on a bunch of fronts. one that the original question is why the ungodly have the money, from the angle of the previous answer these obviously could not handle the temptation so why did god give them material wealth anyways. it is also an implicit judgment on those that have not, in that not only are the materially poor but their faith/maturity is defecient. the conversation broadened to include health (man Copeland would have been proud with the Health and Wealth going on). is it a lack of faith or a sin if someone is sick or handicapped. now no one would say yes to that and all the pitfalls it included. so what was the answer. the answers given ranged from the sin cursed world to attack from Satan. john 9 was then brought up. and this is where my brain really started churning. (note that i purposefully try to keep my mouth shut in SS so that i dont stir the pot too much, no need to endlessly and fruitlessly argue) here is the text:

1 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" 3 Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him. 4 We must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day; night comes, when no one can work. 5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

the disciples question is one of meaning. yes they are presupposing that the man sinned and that idea is shot down, but clearly they are asking why. why is he this way. now the answer that jesus gives is that the man is this way so that the works of God might be made manifest in him. so the man is blind for the express pupose so that jesus/god can make him unblind. nice. but wait. this man has lived his whole life in pain and agony just so that jesus can prove a point. surely there are better ways. why not the feeding of the 5 thousand, why not stopping the wind and waves. why must this man purposefully suffer and be set up just for this. man this could be a game or something a god who hands out pain just so that he can get glory when he comes in and fixes something that seems like it didn't have to be that way to begin with. why not just club him in the leg and then heal it right there. surely a few minutes of pain would be better than all this guy had to go through. (maybe there is something to be said for overcoming human suffering, along with the powers of nature) maybe benevolent dictator is too harsh, but that is what was running through my mind.

but perhaps there is another way. perhaps there was no meaning. perhaps this guy was blind just because he was blind. perhaps the point was the overcoming of meaninglessness (if that is a word). the conflict was not that the guy was blind and suffering. the point was that the guy was blind and suffering without meaning. not that he had been set up before time to be an example, but that jesus (meaning) came across a situation full of no meaning or purpose. now i dont want to sound to rick warrenish here because i dont want to say that the purpose has been laid out from the beginning, but that purpose manifests itself in the confrontation of god and man. what if jesus had never come along. would the blind man have fulfilled his purpose. would it have been his fault if he had not been healed. would it have been jesus' fault.

let me be clear, i am working on the presumption that there are random events. so much so that much of life is governed by these random events. (that could be an ironic sentence) to order the events is an attempt to narrativize and give meaning. and it seems that often that we cannot quite get the story right. following the last post we assimilate some memories, forget some memories, and emphasize some memories so that 'the story' can be complete and we can find some meaning. is this right, wrong, or none of the above. now kick in verse 4. jesus says that we (talk about we in a minute) need to do works now because there is gonna be a time when no work can be done. not wanting to start drawing charts or anything, but the point is that there is an urgency to work while work can be done. the work of giving meaning. so all the ones that live and suffer when no work can be done are suffering of their own accord? or because of a malevalent (sp?) god (kinda like the greek gods of myth)? or is it not a point at all because jesus is always gonna have his people and his spirit around so that the light wont go out. or perhaps they are just on the grind of the meaningless randomness of life. now i am beginning to ramble. i ate dinner half way through writing this, so i lost my train of thought forgive me.

what i do want to say though is that perhaps in the randomness we find ourselves with opportunites, not opportunites that have been set up, but genuine opportunites that we have choice to act and move on. maybe destiny is not discovered, or we become who we are, but it is made/created as we go. there it is in all its illogical coherence.

nodes: intro

this is the first post in series that i hope to begin on a new idea that i am having. i don't know what to call it, but i want to explore what it means to be post-teleological, and if this is a feasible or pragmatic path to head down. perhaps it is heretical (wouldn't be the first time i've waded in those waters), but it a place that i want to explore (create?).

my question is, why do we suppose that there is a goal? i still haven't found what i'm looking for, well why am i looking? is there anything to find?

books

i am going to start this one as a list of books that might be helpful in our journey (construction?)

Back to Square One (Or Just One)

So, before we talk about how the church can function communally, and before we can discuss growth, we need to define what being a christian means. And I agree. I guess this post is to get the ball rolling.

The difficulty, however, is trying to refrain from using cliche-ish language, lists, etc, to define a christian. All of those are usefull, I suppose, to some people, but it seems that 'being a christian' has more to it than can be contained in principles. I cringe every time I hear someone say, "If you just follow these principles..." Ok, so if I do, and then Hurricane Katrina comes and destroys my house, what then?

Anyway.

I may be wrong, but maybe we should go back further than what it means to be a christian and start with Jesus. Whatever it means to be a christian is pretty much based on what/who Jesus was/is(/is to come). Or should we go back even further than that? To creation?

kickoff

alright to get this thing started, i want to consider what we mean by growth. in another conversation, that continues to heat, the church wants to move into a new building to accelerate growth. What does it mean to grow? of course our seminary answers are going to be high minded and negative towards the church growth (population) movement. and rightly so. But what are the standards to measure progress? or better yet are there such things as standards, and is there such a thing as progress?

sidenote. i hope that i am not treating this as a message board, but i want to spur conversation, so maybe we need a message board, or not? but who's to tell us how we use this blog? especially if more than 1 person is involved.

Greetings

hello.