|
|
|
|
|
February Blog Index
"These are a few of my favorite things.."
Bread and butter.. fresh bread, fresh butter. God knew what he was doing when he made wheat.. and cows.
Chocolate.. not dark chocolate, but not the run of the mill milk chocolate either. The best chocolate is in between, and preferably has some nuts and raisins looking for a home..
Hot apple cider.. particularly on snowy days.
Root beer floats.. on warm days.
Wine.. on the sweet side, particularly on hot summer evenings.
Did I mention sex?
Have you ever wondered whether God is a hedonist? At the least, he seems to encourage it. It's becoming tough to enjoy life without feeling guilty, with so much pain and suffering in the world. But consider for a moment that God lives in perfect peace and perfect joy, yet also suffers for the world. Somehow we have to connect with both sides.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:20 AM
Christian discipleship in Postmodernity: Toward a praxis of spiritual friendship
"A good bit of ink has been spilled over the questions surrounding postmodernism’s impact on the church and her theologian’s reaction to postmodernism. What has not been addressed as extensively --- beyond the topic of evangelism --- are the practical implications for Christian discipleship that the community of faith might garner from the legitimate insights of postmodern thinkers."
Stephen Shields article has spoken to some of my recent pondering about friendship versus classical "discipleship." Discipleship is one of those words that now comes with a lot of cultural baggage. It connotes the power of one person over another, an unequal (and probably dishonest) relationship, and a kind of intellectual, mechanical and technical process that is highly goal oriented.
None of us would deny that Jesus had a specific end in my in his relationship with his disciples. Yet as he came to the end of his time with them, he called them "friends."
I've had opportunity to observe many leaders over my 25 years in churches. I've noticed that few of them had friends.
The most authentic usually managed to maintain a few friends, but they were generally outside their own communities. They weren't able, or allowed (it works both ways) to be real in their own community of faith.
Granted that gifted leaders face a special challenge: how to be a father, mother, wife, husband, community leader, and perhaps a plumber (if they also work in the world) all at the same time. Now I also advocate that they should be a friend....impossible, right? Maybe it's one of those "impossible with man, but possible with God" things.
I've observed over the years that my daughters pick up some things by me from my teaching. I've observed that they pick up the deepest things.. attitudes, convictions, hopes and dreams.. by just being with me and by observation. Information is less important than love and "with-ness." More is caught than is taught.
This means that if we are really to impact those around us, we need time and dialogue. We need understanding. We need to hang out together. In order to truly impact this generation we don't need great sermons and great books... we need great people with great hearts. We need fathers and mothers.
"When I left my congregation after twenty-nine years, one of the things that utterly surprised my wife and me was how many people, during the four month lead-time they had before we left, came by to say good-bye, including some who I would have considered marginal to the church - they would show up every third or fourth Sunday, no crises in their lives like death or divorce. I was stunned to hear how many of them considered my wife and I to be two of their best friends. They felt an intimacy, closeness. These were not "leadership material" folks. They were not the ones who made the church run. They were not the ones who made me feel good about what I was doing. Every once in awhile I would think, "How can I motivate them better?" You know what it was? It was the way we lived. Our family lived with a kind of open house, with a lot of people through it all the time. It was that leisurely quality. If you stay in one place long enough, people start noticing. " Eugene Peterson posted by Len Hjalmarson |
5:20 PM
"As in the sacrament: the real thing happens when words are added to bread and wine. Now the guests are transformed. True, they continue to be ambassadors, navy officers, bankers, clergymen.. But just as in a vegetable soup many different vegetables are cooked into one single broth, so the different guests become one soup. They eat together, they become "companions."
"The meaning of this word is very suggestive. It comes from the Latin "com," with, and "panis," bread. Companions are those who eat bread together. The purpose of a dinner party is not the pragmatic end of nourishment and not only the pleasure of eating. It is hoped that eating together will become an occasion of companionship, friendship. The guests assimilate the food. The ritual assimilates the guests.."
Rubem Alves, The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:30 AM
From my chair I watch a spider which made her cobweb on the upper corner of the walls of my studey. She was there yesterday and witha broom I got rid of it. Spiders and cobwebs are a sign of carelessness and I didn't want my visitors disturbed by their annoying presence. But she returned and rebuilt her house int he same place. I believe that she has forgiven me and that she hopes I will understand.. I understand. And I decided to share my space with her.
The spider doubly fascinates me. First, because of what I see. There she is, safe and happy, over the empty space. There is no hesitation in her steps. Her legs move on the thin threads of her cobweb with tranquil precision, as if they were fingers of a violinist, dancing on the strings. Her cobweb: such a fragile structure, built with almost transparent gossamer. And yet it is perfect, symmetrical, beautiful, fit for its purpose. Second, because of what I do not see. I did not see her first move, the move which was the beginning of the web, the leap into the void ... I imagine that tiny, almost invisible creature, hanging alone on the wall. She sees the other walls, far away, and measures the distance between them: an empty space . . . And there is one thing only she can count on for the incredible work she is about to start: a thread, still hidden inside her bodyl. And then, suddenly, a leap into the void, and the spider's universe has begun.
The spider: a metaphor of myself; I also want to weave a web over the void. But my world is not woven with anything material. It is made out of a substance more ethereal than gossamer thread, so ethereal that some have compared it to the wind: words. The human world is made with words. "In the beginning, the Word..." And, like the spider's thread, words come also from within our bodies. Words are transformed flesh. I wonder if Nietzsche was not wathing a spider when he said that "man is a rope over an abyss." Rubem Alves
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
12:45 AM
“For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid,
I was sitting with a friend over coffee, and we were talking
about faith. Somewhere the conversation took a turn, and we found ourselves
talking about truth.
Authority, Community and Truth in a Postmodern World
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
1:00 PM
A Sermon for President Bush
"This was delivered Sunday 12 January 2003 and appears here by kind permission of Brian McLaren.
"Dear Mr. President,
"I will never forget the day the ballots finally revealed you as our nation’s 43rd president. I was listening to the radio. You were asked in an interview what you wanted to say to the American people, and you said, “We have to love one another,” and I thought, “This is a different kind of president indeed!”
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
1:00 PM
I and my family have become involved with a number of single mothers and their children over the past year. I want to share some of the story of one of these families. I'll call the mom "karen" (not her real name).
Karen became involved with a man about six years ago while she was a heroine addict. They had two children together. Karen's life is typical: her mother was worried about some of her acting out when she was a young teen and so gave her into foster care. That experience of rejection and the lack of love she experienced as she was shuffled from one foster family to another confirmed Karen along the path of anxiety, loneliness, and addiction.
Karen eventually found enough resources and hope to leave heroine behind, and is now on a low dose of Methadone. She also found a way to leave her oppressive husband behind, and she moved to our town about a year ago to escape his threats and criminal influence. Unfortunately he found her through her sister.
We met Karen about six months ago. She gave her heart to the Lord two months ago.
Karen is on welfare and her life is quite chaotic. Planning to have her and her children over here always seems to run up against a host of challenges. When she does arrive she sits in our big easy chair and is asleep in a couple of minutes. She always is on the verge of exhaustion. When she comes to our table she eats less than the average six year old. She is gaunt.
Her children are probably the most beautiful and peaceful kids I've ever seen. Granted that some of that peacefulness is likely learned behavior in the face of chaos.. trying to stay out of the way and trying to take care of a stressed mom. But we've observed Karen with her kids enough to know that she is a considerate, loving and gentle mother.
One of the great stressors in her life is her ongoing and unwanted relationship to her ex-husband. Since he found her he appears on her door at random times unannounced (like 4 AM) and asking to see his children. Since he is a Santa Claus Dad (no presence but almost always gifts) the five year old in particular is always eager to see him.
He is an addict and a pusher and there are a couple of warrants for his arrest (one for assault the other unknown). He travels with an alias or two. He drives like a maniac and has wrecked two vehicles (at least) in the last four months.
Karen would love to simply phone the police and have him picked up. He has made it known in clear terms that if she does this her life is over. She knows his record.. he has had a few people badly beaten in the past and shot at least one of them. He has an unending but unknown source of income. He associates (somewhat randomly) with Hells Angels. She believes that even in prison he would find a way to put a contract on her life.
This also ties our hands. We would love to see this man permanently out of the way. Given our present judicial system, there is a fifty fifty chance that he would be out on bail within a week of any arrest. If our friend personally recounted the threats he has made on her life, it might mean a longer jail term but the odds of her own survival would drop.
Possible solutions? Move her and her children suddenly. Move them into a safe home with a Christian family where someone else appears at the door when anyone knocks. If he manages to trace them he suddenly has a lot more to deal with, including a father who would not hesitate to pick up the phone for the police.
We don't have a single extra bedroom in the home we are renting so this isn't a good option for us. We may connect with the broader Christian community to check out other resources.
Now that you have heard some of her story, pray for a solution. A good start would be for Karen's ex to be abruptly picked up by the police.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:45 AM
It has taken me quite some time to recognize the direct relationship of the personality cult to the leadership mess in the modern church. What do too some prominent leaders lack, particularly in the charismatic circles? Moral authority. Moral authority can't be achieved by study. It isn't related to knowledge or position. It can only be attained by actual sacrifice and risk.
We have few leaders who are truly heroic, few who are willing to sacrifice for the sake of Christ. They have far too much at stake. They have been hard at work climbing the ladder of popularity and success. As Mark Strom pointed out in "Reframing Paul,"
"Paul would not allow any human system or convention to hedge the communities against the risks of working out what it meant to live by the dying and rising of Christ. Such security would only throw the community back on their own resources and reinforce individual and communal boasting....
"Paul urged leaders to imitate his personal example of how the message of Jesus inverted status. He was at pains to dissociate himself from the sophists, those travelling orator-teacher-lawyers of his day (1 Cor 2:1-5). Though undoubtedly educated and skilled, he did not imitate the sophists' eloquence and persona. In so doing, Paul set himself on a collision course with the contemporary conventions of personal honour-and with his potential patrons. He refused to show favouritism towards individuals or ekklesiai. The gospel offered him rights, but he refused them. Christ was not a means to a career. Yet the agendas and processes of maintaining and reforming evangelical life and thought remain the domain of professional scholars and clergy. Their ministry is their career.
"Dying and rising with Christ meant status reversal. In Paul's case, he deliberately stepped down in the world. We must not romanticize this choice. He felt the shame of it amongst his peers and potential patrons, yet held it as the mark of his sincerity. Moreover, it played a critical role in the interplay of his life and thought. Tentmaking was critical, even central, to his life and message. His labour and ministry were mutually explanatory. Yet, for most of us, 'tent-making' belongs in the realms of missionary journals and far-flung shores. As a model for ministry in the USA, Britain or Australia, it remains as unseemly to most of us as it did to the Corinthians. At best it is second best.
"Evangelicalism will not shake its abstraction, idealism and elitism until theologians and clergy are prepared to step down in their worlds. Some might argue that since the world often shows contempt for the pastoral role, then professional ministry is a step back. But that is to ignore the more pertinent set of social realities. Evangelicalism has its own ranks, careers, financial security, marks of prestige, and rewards. Within that world, professional ministry is rank and status.
"Ministry as profession feeds the pride that separates the seminary and the pulpit from the congregation. It makes Paul abstract."
But where truth abstracted is a lie, embodied truth has power, and this is the connection to authority and a new kind of leadership. I was stunned when I discovered this prophetic discussion from 1981 by Richard Quebedeaux. He wrote that,
"Because the very foundations of American society, including the family, are crumbling, we MUST seek and find strong leaders. But we need a new kind of leader-beyond the celebrity, beyond the pragmatist-to show us the way to the abundant life, the good life that God originally intended for his children and still longs for us to have..
"No medium or method of conveying the Christian gospel can meet people's basic needs for recognition, involvement, worthiness, growth, and indeed salvation itself without the loving give and take of person-to-person interaction over a long period of time. This is what community really means, and this is exactly where popular religion and its leaders are not successful.
"In a secular society, in a world where homelessness is the norm, the only way religion can really be "successful" is to provide a home for the homeless-a family that includes not must my kind of people, but God's kind of people, who love him with everything they have, and who love their neighbor as much as they love themselves. The church does need to become God's ideal family, both in word and indeed. And its leaders will have to be heroic leaders ho really live and exemplify the life they preach and teach, whose authority is recognized in their nobility, in their concrete modeling of the love of God, the only force that can save and transform a world plagued with the consequences of sin.
At this point we can say that the crisis of authority in our culture is ultimately a crisis caused by the lack of love, both on the part of leaders themselves and on the part of their followers….
"Like loving parents, heroic leaders will have no happiness or peace until their followers, and the rest of humanity as well, also have the same. Thus such leaders never rest in the face of suffering and tragedy. When others suffer, they suffer…
"In a word, the strongest heroic leaders are themselves servants, nay, the very servants of the servants of God. It is in the nobility of this strength-in servanthood-that their authority is both recognized and authenticated. But more than that, the truth of their teaching and their example is borne out in their fruits, in the quality of the character of their followers.
"What America-and the rest of the world-needs, then, is godly leaders who by the discipline they impose on themselves and their followers, produce saints. If Christianity wishes to have a transformative impact on America-to speak with authority-its leaders will have to provide the one thing all modern Americans need most of all: a loving family and a home. And to do this it will have to have a new medium to bring the church home in a more substantial way than the electronic church has done… "
From By What Authority: the Rise of Personality Cults in American Christianity. HarperCollins, 1982. p. 177-183
"The new church leaders will be chosen and prepared very differently than those of the past. We must learn to recognize true spiritual leadership as the Lord did. He did not go to the great religious institutions of His time to find His leaders for the church, but He went to common people who were being prepared by common, everyday life. Life does more to prepare us for ministry than any institution. Institutional preparation for ministry can bring forth the most unrealistic leadership that is out of touch with real life. This is one of the reasons why the church has become increasingly out of touch with the times. " Rick Joyner
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:45 AM
Rob Lane on the journey..
It's about time I give an update on our journey. One of the things I have been thinking heavily about is what God has next. And for many out there who can relate, the journey takes many twists and turns, zig zags here and there, and maze walking while of course waiting and relying on the Holy Spirit. It is in those times of waiting that if we are not careful we can get stale and complacent on the calling God has on us. So, through major conviction, the Holy Spirit has been loudly whispering to Cara and I, "Why are you waiting to do Plesion (being neighbor) in Sacramento when I have you currently in a waiting period in another neighborhood? Why not be the church to the neighbors here (where we are living with my parents)?" Rather than continue fighting it, Cara and I finally submitted... joyfully. So last Thursday (02.13) Cara, my son Connor, and myself baked sugar cookies, decorated them Valentine's style and set out into the neighborhood- door to door- meeting neighbors and experiencing the first step of community- intentionally "ministering" love. No other agenda or program- just love. And how fulfilling! Why have we put "evangelism" into this packaged, market driven, program that only really has created confusion and a lack of empowerment among believers?
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:45 AM
Found at the Ginkworld forums:
"As a Mennonite church, we have a history of being a peace church. What exactly that means is expressed in different ways, even in our own church. I’ve found myself torn in recent weeks in knowing how to understand Jesus’ call to our lives and apply it to the situation today.
"There are two dangers I want to address. The first is the aligning ourselves and God’s call with the anti-war movement. As I look at many people who are involved in this movement today, the vast majority come from one side of the political spectrum. To illustrate, more bombs were dropped on Iraq in 1998 than during the entire Gulf War in the early ‘90’s. Yet we did not see and hear about massive peace marches and rallies. Much of the rhetoric against the war is situational: the US and the President are imperialistic, the danger is not as strong as is portrayed, the US is going alone. The danger for us as a peace church is that our stance against war is not situational. It is unconditional. When we begin picking up the anti-war rhetoric, we risk painting ourselves in a corner if proven wrong. What if the war starts, there are limited casualties, and convincing evidence of terrorist plans is uncovered? Does that then mean we were wrong to oppose the war? If the situation is why we oppose it, then the situation can prove us wrong. That is why it becomes key to clarify that our stance is not to oppose or support war, but rather to clear identify that the role of one who claims Christ’s name is not to participate in it.
"The second danger is to align oneself and God’s call with support of the war. God’s agent and force of redemption in the world today is the local church. Jesus Christ, working through the church, is the most powerful force in the world, including smart bombs and terrorist acts. While God does sometimes use the violent acts of others to accomplish His purposes, the call to the church by Jesus Christ is clear and uncompromising. Our project here is not to garner safety and security for ourselves, our families, our communities and our nation. In fact, Jesus gives a clear and direct call to everyone who follows Him to abandon such notions and be willing to give everything up for His name.
"So what is our role? What does it mean to abandon all for the sake of Jesus? How is the church a powerful force of redemption? We can get some indications of our role by looking at the life of Jesus and the early church. Their political situation was even more treacherous than ours today. They had the Zealots who wanted to fight for independence from Rome. They had an imperialist Roman government that plundered and conquered other nations. Yet the focus of Jesus is clear: bring healing to sick, welcome the stranger, offer salvation to those who believe. These acts of service are acts of power, far more powerful in history than any bomb or weapon of mass destruction has ever been. Jesus calls us as Christians to reject the use of force and to reject participation in its implementation. He calls us to join up in His army, fighting with unconventional spiritual weapons to form communities that bring redemption and transformation to our townships, towns and cities.
"So I do not spend my time supporting or opposing the war. My attempts to influence the direction of war policy is of small political consequence compared to the political consequence of subordinating my natural desires and working in God’s kingdom. And the truth is, when I write this I realize how little I’ve done, how little I’ve sacrifice. I am called to action." John T Royer
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:35 AM
Declassified documents point to US war crimes in Iraq
"Writing in the September 2001 issue of The Progressive, Nagy cites recently declassified documents that show the United States was aware of the civilian health consequences of destroying Iraq's drinking water and sanitation systems in the Gulf War, and knew that sanctions would prevent the Iraqi government from repairing the degraded facilities.
"During the Gulf War, coalition forces bombed Iraq's eight multi-purpose dams, destroying flood control systems, irrigation, municipal and industrial water storage, and hydroelectric power. Major pumping stations were targeted, and municipal water and sewage facilities were destroyed.
"Article 54 of the Geneva Convention prohibits attacks on "drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:30 AM
Tony Campolo, while at Missions Fest in Vancouver a couple of weeks ago said that
the US embargo should be lifted and humanitarian aid given to Iraqi's who
would then have the strength to overthrow a regime which they hate more than we
do. Campolo suggested that going ahead with the war will set back relations
between the world of Islam and Christians by a thousand years.
These thoughts in concert with the following headline about Jimmy Carter really make me wonder about
what agendas exist behind the scenes. While the economy didn't flourish under Carter, there is no disputing the man's character or reputation abroad. Don't you think that Carter and the millions of US citizens opposed to the war deserve a hearing without compromising homeland security or being viewed as traitors?
"Jimmy Carter has sensationally backed England's Daily Mirror and its 'Not In
My Name' campaign against war in Iraq...
"A well-informed US citizen with top security clearance recently said as regards weapons of mass destruction, that it is already too late. "These weapons are already in the hands of the wrong people. Our going to Iraq is not unlike walking into a bar and belting the toughest looking dude in the chops to establish a position of perceived strength."
See also Iraqi Exile Calls for Peace
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
1:10 PM
When I posted the links to Scott Ritter, the former UN Chief Weapons Inspector arguing against action against Iraq earlier this month I received three notes via email. One was strongly against war, one was strongly for it, and one supported an extension for the weapons inspectors, cautioned against any war that was not internationally sanctioned, but affirmed the position that a nation has the right to defend itself.
The note that was strongly in support of military action against Iraq (unilateral or UN sanctioned) was the most interesting of the three. The writer, a Christian brother and a marine, pointed out that Saddam is a nasty guy and has shown no interest in changing, and also bemoaned the anti-Americanism and Bush-bashing that is so common out there.
This situation is so complex, I don't know where to begin.
But I want to affirm a few things. I want to affirm my belief that George Bush is indeed a Christian brother who is struggling to find a way through all this. I want to affirm that I don't hate anyone.. American or Iraqi. I want to affirm all those who struggle with their conscience and are determined to do what is right, regardless of personal cost.
I and my family are praying for a peaceful solution. We, like Flora McDonald (a Canadian senator heard recently on the CBC), are greatly concerned for the civilian loss of life that will occur should a war begin, not to mention the ongoing suffering over many years as a result of the depleted Uranium used in the American weapons. We are also concerned about the implications of the war if other countries are drawn into the conflict. We personally do not want to see our country (Canada) involved in this war, even if the UN should sanction military action.
I do believe, on the other hand, in the right of a sovereign nation to defend itself. I am not personally convinced that Iraq is a great threat to the USA, even though there may have been support for Bin Laden in the past.
It is very difficult to sort truth from fiction and from all the ideology. But I am inclined to think that the greater interest behind military action has to do with oil and the American military-industrial complex.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:50 AM
"As humans we crave belonging, we need the connected ness to others that brings security, but this connectedness can prevent the natural movement and evolution that we need in our lives. It can also get in the way of creativity and stifle the natural loneliness that pushes us to discover something new, that pushes us closer to God. This loneliness is the loneliness of the individual who steps out from the group, who takes a chance on what can be discovered and done outside of the norm.
"So here is the paradox: as humans we are caught between competing drives, the drive to belong, to fit in and be a part of something bigger than ourselves, and the drive to let our deepest selves rise up, to walk alone, to refuse the accepted and the comfortable, and this can mean, at least for a time, the acceptance of anguish. It is in the group that we discover what we have in common. It is as individuals that we discover a personal relationship with God. We must find a way to balance our two opposing impulses." Jean Vanier, Becoming Human, p. 18-19
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:30 AM
Come, my friends.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
Tennyson, "Ulysses"
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
12:10 AM
"The young woman standing before us looks a lot like Morticia Addams. Like the classic TV character, her hair is long, black, and stringy. Her skin is typing-paper white, except for her lips, which are painted black, matching her floor-length sheath. She is pierced. She is the worship leader.
"In this incarnation, Morticia's warm contralto is replaced by an intense soprano that hugs a melody line of only three or four notes. Her tango is a rich, rhythmic amalgam of classical, grunge, and funk, produced by the band behind her: cello, bassoon, violins, flute, keyboard, guitar, bass, and drums. The sound is neo-classical funk, a little bit Celtic, a little bit rock-and-roll; Isaac Watts' hymns set to new tunes. To untuned ears, it is strange, stirring, not that singable, and in this setting, very right.
"This is Seattle."
Ministering with "My" Generation
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:10 AM
"So what do I think about the war? I am concerned by the figures that I read in Time magazine this week. They listed the countries which politically support the war and the results of polls done of their populations. Most countries did not have majority support for a war with Iraq without UN backing. About half of those listed did not support a war with Iraq even with UN backing. Since when did our politicians become so far removed from the will of the people? Since when does a democratically elected political representative say that the sight of 100,000 - 200,000 people on the streets of Melbourne (with more demonstrations to follow) will not make a difference to his decision?"
Signposts covers the anti-war demonstrations in Melbourne.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:05 AM
Found at DJCHUANG
"According to this Seattle Times article, the U.S. Center for World Mission has been cited as saying 5,000 churches focusing on alternative, postmodern worship have been planted in the United States. That'd average out to be about 100 of these church prototypes in each state; I don't think so, tho'.. at least not around my neck of the woods here in metro DC."
And this..
"I've been re-thinking on the back burner what it means to be an "ePastor" as I've designated myself on this web site, and what I put myself out for is as a listening ear, not so much a confessional (and believe you me, no one has yet offered confessions here), but as a pastoral counselor. After 5 years of hands-on pastoral ministry, and now 2 years removed from it, I found myself gravitating in the past decade from being a pedantic doctrinal cognitive teacher of content, to a fellow human being who desires to walk alongside of people through the journey of life and faith. As I walk along side, I blur the boundaries of pastor and parishoner, okay, I eradicate it, and consider each person as my friend. And as such, at the moment, that's where I am.."
Cool. I identify.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:45 AM
I've been thinking lately about the standard systematization of theology and theological instruction. I got into this vein by looking again at the problem of evil. Why would an all knowing God create Satan? Why would an all good God not simply destroy Him?
I know.. the issue of "free will" gets caught in all this. But what is most striking to me is that there is no "rational" and logical system that solves all the problems. Yet.. God could easily have given us a systematic textbook that would do so.
Boy... would that have been boring. And we could all then say that we are Christians because we had the information stored in our heads.
Thankfully, it's much more complex.. or much simpler.. than that. He gave us stories of faith, and a few additional instructions on how to live life.
What God is saying to me is this: "I want you to enter a relationship with me and a journey of discovery. As you walk with Me you will learn all you need to know.. you will know "the truth" as you walk it out.
"It's not about what you learn intellectually. It's not about information but about formation.
"The curriculum is LIFE. I became flesh so that you might know Me. I give you My Spirit and call you to follow Me, and when your words become flesh you will know Me.
"There is no map...that would only enable you to do it without Me. But apart from you can do nothing. All you need to know is found in knowing Me, hearing Me, loving Me and walking forward holding my hand."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:40 AM
"Recently, I was asked for advice about how to go about starting a congregation in a café. The question started me thinking about the lessons that I had learnt from my church’s experience over the last three years in starting non-traditional congregations based on new models of church."
Lessons from an Emerging Church
posted by Bobzilla |
10:40 AM
RISK
They have cradled you in custom,
The trails of the world be countless,
"Paul would not allow any human system or convention to hedge the communities against the risks of working out what it meant to live by the dying and rising of Christ. Such security would only throw the community back on their own resources and reinforce individual and communal boasting. The openness of Paul's life and thought to the world around him contrasts with the insularity of parts of evangelicalism. Paul urged believers to remain in the world both for the sake of the gospel and the world; we have frequently retreated into institutional and privatised ghettos. There is a certain irony in this. While evangelicals generally do not warm to the concept of a state church, we have erected what is in effect a Christendom, complete with large organizational structures vying for public influence, educational institutions spanning kindergarten to university, and a vast network of bureaucrats, businesses, tradespeople and professionals. In a further irony, this imitation of 'secular' structures has not brought the everyday world within the scope of theology and the gathering. Indeed, it may have deepened the ways we split life into the sacred and the secular."
"When a community is born, its founders have to struggle to survive and announce their ideal. So they find themselves confronted with contradictions and sometimes even persecution. These oblige the members of the community to emphasize their commitment; they strengthen motivation and encourage people to go beyond themselves to rely totally on Providence. Sometimes only the direct intervention of God can save them. When they are stripped of all their wealth, of all security and human support, they must depend on God and the people around them to understand the witness of their life. They are obliged to remain faithful to prayer and the glow of their love; it is a question of life or death. Their total dependence guarantees their authenticity; their weakness is their strength.
"But when a community has enough members to do all the work, when it has enough material goods, it can relax. It has strong structures. It is fairly secure. It is then that there is danger."
"Most men spend the energy of their lives trying to eliminate risk, or squeezing it down to a more manageable size. Their children hear "no" far more than they hear "yes"; their employees feel chained up and their weives are equally bound. If it works, if a man succeeds in securing his life against all risk, he'll wind up in a cocoon of self-protection and wonder all the while why he's suffocating..." posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:30 AM
"Transformation: To change into another substance; to transmute; To change in nature, disposition, heart, character, or the like; to convert; to metamorphose; as, a caterpillar is ultimately transformed into a butterfly.
"This is what we're here for. I mean, this process - the process of real substantive transformation, is what has and is happening to us if we are in Christ. It's not just a matter of doing what Jesus says or even of doing what Jesus did, but more of becoming what Jesus is. I know, I've said all this before. It deserves saying again. It is the center of this whole mess - that which will make it not so messy if we let it."
Found at Alan Creech
And from Todd Hunter..
"Later today I'll write an article for next-wave magazine on "the massive transitions many of us are going through"; try to provide some understanding about why it feels the way it does and give some tips for handling it. As I woke this morning and the soon-to-be article popped into my mind, I thought of a different aspect: I wondered "why" so many of us are on this upsetting journey of letting go of almost everything we've know regarding church?
"I once asked Eugene Peterson "why do you supose my generation of pastors messed things up so bad" (with refeerence to the way Eugene concieves of being church and doing pastoral work)? His answer stunned me, but also seemed intuitively right. He said " most of you guys were not willing to be seen as unsucessful in the eyes of your peers, which in your era meant a rather mindless pursuit of numbers, growth and programs ran by professional manigerial types."
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:00 AM
It is dawning on me that we need a new kind of spirituality for this chaordic age. It is rooted in inner freedom, dependence on God, and the ability to live with a degree of chaos and uncertainty. It is also rooted in community and covenant, because it is as we learn dependence on others that we learn dependence on God, and it is as we discover our own weakness that we discover His strength.
Prayer and meditation and grounding in the love of God will be critical. Without these, we will not build a new church that is much different from the old.
"Whenever we're trying to change a deeply structured belief system, everything in life is called into question-our relationships with loved ones, children, and colleagues; our relationships with authority and major institutions. One group of senior leaders, reflecting on the changes they've gone through, commented that the higher you are in the organization, the more change is required of you personally. Those who have led their organizations into new ways of organizing often say that the most important change was what occurred in themselves. Nothing would have changed in their organizations if they hadn't changed. " Margaret Wheatley, in Leader to Leader
Community
I've learned a new lesson about community the past few weeks. Community is not just about what we can give.. it is about what we are willing to receive.
Perspective
Today I am releasing the power of a distant star. The stored energy was in the form of living hydro-carbons, and was harvested on a nearby mountain by a friend some months ago. He cut and stacked the fir and pine himself, and now I use it to create heat in my home. I kindle the blaze and marvel at the heat and the light displayed. The energy from that distant sun gave life to a tree, which died, and now gives life to my family.
This intimate connection of things great and small, and seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary things around us, is like finding another lens through which to explore reality. It's important to find those other lenses, because if we view life through a single lens, we have only two dimensional vision.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:15 AM
In the spiritual life, the word discipline means "the effort to create some space in which God can act." Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from being filled up. Discipline means that somewhere you're not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life; discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that you hadn't planned or counted on.
Henri Nouwen, From Solitude to Community to Ministry, in Seeds Magazine, Summer, 1985
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:45 AM
We gather a group of friends every second Sunday in our home. We gather around 4 PM, share a meal together around 5 PM, and somewhere between 6:30 and 7 PM we sometimes worship or pray for one another.
During the week we connect over coffee, or on the phone, or via email. We also try to help one another by sharing resources, or children, or with expertise (oil changes or dryer repairs or computer diagnosis).
Along the way, every month or so, someone comes into the kingdom and passes from darkness into light. And we celebrate physical birthdays regularly too.
It's very loose on the whole. As I wrote last week, it's difficult to define ourselves. We share
leadership. We have little agenda. We don't always worship. Our meetings have little structure. We chat a lot.. we pray a fair bit (a lot more individually). We share some resources but we don't have a budget. We are in touch with several traditional "missionaries" collectively, but it is all relational.
And the river runs wide
I've been tempted to try to define our group. But if I could do so, what would we gain, and what would we lose? Margaret Wheatley, of "A Simpler Way," argues that we lose more by definition than we gain. And when we define something, we cease living on the egdes. We cease being explorers and discoverers and we become mechanics and managers. What we define tends to become set in concrete. We lose the quality of wonder and imagination that lead us into new lands.
Once upon a time there was a man named Schrodinger. He formulated a thought experiment with a cat, trying to demonstrate the absurdity of quantum theory. Quantum theory states that a particle can simultaneously exist in two or more states, until it's observed, at which point it "collapses" into one state. Schrodinger said: put a cat in a box with a poison capsule which is set off by the decay of a radioactive atom. If the atom can be both decayed and undecayed at once, then the cat could be both alive and dead at once, which is nonsense, therefore QM is flawed. Later events proved Quantum theory was indeed absurd, but it was the only theory that makes sense of the subatomic universe.
The more recent demonstration of Quantum Mechanics goes like this. Imagine an Ace taken from a deck of cards. One side of the card is the face, which has the heart symbol on it, and the other side has an intricate pattern. Each side is unique.
Our imaginary card has infinitely sharp edges, and we stand the card on edge on a perfectly flat table. Which way will the card fall? The Quantum answer is, "The card will fall both ways."
According to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, the only way to determine the fall of the card is to introduce an observer. Heisenberg discovered that light is either a particle or a wave, depending on the observer. The questions we ask, the very paradigms we use, limit or even determine the outcomes. When the observer watches the card, then the card will fall either one way or the other. The entry of the observer changes the outcome.
Consider a single particle in motion. We can know either the particle's size, or its velocity, but we cannot know both. If we freeze the particle to measure it's size, we don't know its velocity. If we observe the particle in motion, we can only guess at the size.
"Objectivism, by reducing the world to a collection of things, places the knower in a field of mute and inert objects that passively succumb to his or her definitions of them. In this sense, objectivism creates the most subjective of worlds..." Parker J Palmer
How does all this apply to our local gathering? The possibilities are endless until we introduce definition. The modern mind loves to define things, to better manage (control) them. Perhaps the beauty of the dynamic of real community is that it escapes or transcends definition, just as true community is de facto outside our control. Have we understood "friendship" because we can define it? Is a letter from my wife equivalent to meeting her in person?
What do we lose when we limit ourselves to what we can know and observe? "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes."
When we resist definition we maintain maximum flexibility, maximum fluidity, maximum ability to respond to a changing environment. When we add definition we risk introducing only the best outcomes we can predict or engineer. In a sense, by adding definition we play God.
Lord, help me to live the journey with you and teach me to color outside the lines.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
11:45 AM
"The mission of a community is to give life to others, that is to say, to transmit new hope and new meaning to them. Mission is revealing to others their fundamental beauty, value and importance in the universe, their capacity to love, to grow and to do beautiful things and to meet God. Mission is transmitting to people a new inner freedom and hope; it is unlocking the doors of their being so that new energies can flow; it is taking away from their shoulders the terrible yoke of guilt and fear. To give life to people is to reveal to them that they are loved just as they are by God, with the mixture of good and evil, light and darkness that is in them; that the stone in front of their tomb in which all the dirt of their lives has been hidden can be rooled away. They are forgiven; they can live in freedom."
Jean Vanier, Community and Growth.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:30 AM
The New Sacred Space: Crafting Worship in Community by Sally Morgenthaler
The february issue of ::seven:: is live. This month we focus on social action/justice.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:00 AM
"The church in the New Millennium will be a major force in society only in as much as its leaders empower all of God's people to do the works of the church, inside and outside its walls. When that is allowed to occur and the people take hold, they will be the evangelistic light that brings people to Christ in record numbers and Christianity will once again be the dominant force in society." Sue Mallory, Executive Director, Leadership Training Network
"The church in the new Millennium will be successful to the extent that its focus is on ministry that is biblically transforming, relationally shaping and spiritually empowering." Dr. Paul Magnus, President, Briercrest Family of Schools.
"The church in the new millennium will be defined through experience and relationship. Postmodern culture is looking for an experience of God, not an explanation. The future church, like the ancient, will live in the mystery of the presence of the risen Christ and demonstrate authentic community in a culture of isolation." Michael Slaughter.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:30 AM
Brian wrote, "One of the best books I have come across recently is Live to Tell -
By Brad Kallenberg. Brad has written an amazing discussion about what evangelism may look
like as modern assumptions continue to die. His discussion on evangelism as community is fantastic!"
Community and Friendship
We talk a about community/relationship as the center of rebuilding. The modern church has been so task and meeting oriented, that we have left intimacy behind. But when we are so busy with so many tasks, and so caught up in our own function and even defined by it (pastor john, teacher jim), how can we then talk about intimacy with God as the center? The medium IS the message... and the message is that you are what you do or you are what you know and that God is more interested in using us than in knowing us.
So what about friendship? We have a great example in the NT where Jesus says "No longer do I call you servants. .. but friends" (Jn 15:15).
It seems to me that, as Eugene Peterson remarked, those who have the greatest kingdom impact on us are not great preachers and teachers, but friends. Why? Simple. We let friends into our lives at a level no one else will ever approach. We let them into our joy and our pain, and it is friends who have access to the deepest places of our hearts.
And it is those places that need "salvation" (healing).
Ultimately, none of us is seeking more knowledge. We are seeking to love and be loved.
How's that for evangelical? .. it is GOOD NEWS to be loved!
"All morning I have been thinking that loving compassion is the most
realistic tool of de and re construction. Do you really think that the local church is like
a McDonald's franchise which independent contractors can set up at will? Or is The
Lord really the Lord of the church with a modus operendi of washing feet and inviting each
other into the gardens of our hearts where, as I recall, He has been invited to take
up residence?
"That's why we need a language of the soul and guides for the inner journey
more than we need interior decorators for the Titanic." Stan Biggs
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:10 AM
Christian A. Schwarz wrote "Paradigm Shift in the Church." In the introduction, he discusses why people talk at cross purposes. Schwarz writes, "The reason seems to me to be that some.......whether consciously or unconsciously--think in a different theological paradigm than their critics. They have another perspective from which they view their own experience and interpret the church (and the world).
Different paradigms cannot be related to each other. Christians who think and act in different paradigms are, in effect, talking different languages. Even where they use the same words, they may mean something completely different. Thus it is easy to explain why the very same phrase that makes one person's heart beat faster can give
another one a sinking feeling in the stomach. On both sides of the debate people make the same mistake of criticizing theological statements that originated in another paradigm from the point of view of their own paradigm--without realizing how hopeless a task it is. Different paradigms are mutually incompatible."
For more from Schwarz check out this summary of his book Natural Church Development
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
7:40 AM
From the Postmodern Mailing List..
"If post moderns do not like
labels is it possible that a post modern church will not have a name.
Because the moment we put a name on our group are we not at the same time labeling
us? (I am not with that group but with this group).
"I am sick and tired of our traditional churches, and yet where do we
find a pomo church. We are feeling led to leave where we are but I have no desire
to pastor a traditional church--so I wonder where will I be going.
We talk about pomo but where is their church?"
To which I responded..
How timely :)
Two years ago we joked together about being a No Name church.
It became harder and harder to define ourselves as "church" at all. We share
leadership. We have little agenda. We don't always worship. There is rarely
a structured teaching. We chat a lot.. we pray a fair bit (a lot more
individually). We visit the sick, give money and food to single parents ..
but we don't have a budget. We are in touch with several missionaries collectively, but it is all relational.
Lately I've been thinking of visiting the local ministerial.. I was a member
of one five years ago. But I'm really not sure what I'll tell them when they
ask me what I am doing, because the language barrier will be huge.
How would a Martian talk about Mars to an earthling? You have to be there...
The Inuk have something like fifty words for "snow..." know what I mean?
Even "house church" doesn't cut it anymore, because then christian leaders
tend to picture a traditional church but in a small group :)
It's way more fluid... more chaotic.. and more authentic..
Interesting though.. while the edges are hard to find, the center is Jesus
and love. Or as Jn White somewhere wrote about house churches, we live in
the BELL form..
Blessing
I have a feeling that there is a reason to attend the ministerial, to maybe
begin to dialogue with local leaders about culture and change. But a part of me is
dreading this..
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
4:40 PM
It's cold in Kelowna this morning. I dropped off my daughter at school, came home and split some wood and built a fire.
If you've ever built a fire on a cold morning, you know how satisfying the entire process can be.
I enjoy the physical labor, so long as I don't have to stay at it all morning. Then as the first sticks leap into flame, I enjoy the warmth and the light.
This morning I followed a method I don't always follow. I stacked mostly cedar and some 1.5" diameter sticks of pine, and let it blaze up thoroughly.. about five minutes with the damper fully open. That gave me a bed of red hot coals, not yet expended. I piled 3" diameter pieces of pine on that, and I had another blazing fire five minutes later.
I began to wonder about church planting methods. There is the slow and sure methodical method, careful to follow protocol and ensuring that each piece fits neatly with every piece that follows.. this is perhaps the modern method, which assumes that we know much more than we really know. Then there is the method above.. build a blaze and let the heat and the light do their work, then throw another load on top of the hot coals. This assumes more energy in the process and dynamically supplied by the fuel itself, and whatever is given mysteriously from above.
Perhaps church planting doesn't have to be as slow and methodical as we once thought. Perhaps sending out a red hot team to infect other fuel with heat and light can result in an overnight blaze.
The chaordic method assumes that I really don't know much about what is going on, but I know that placing fuel on top of hot coals produces heat and light, and those are good things. What enduring value comes out of this process may not be obvious or predictable, but the entire room gets warm in a short time.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:15 AM
"Justice is the fragrance of worship."
Overheard in an interview with David Ruis on 100 Huntley Street
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
9:15 AM
"The church has slid so far in to consumerism it is nearly impossible to live out your faith without paying for it. If you want to be properly discipled it’s about $9500 a year here."
There is more at The Heresy.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
7:25 AM
Check out Jordon Cooper's quote from Helmut Thielicke's autobiography..
"I'm referring to Helmut Thielicke, a brilliant Lutheran theologian who tangled with the Nazis (and with Karl Barth!) and yet left his finest mark as a parish pastor and preacher. Unlike most of the pastors of his day, he felt that preaching had to touch on the hurts and fears and challenges of ordinary life -- AND that good preaching had to show that the Bible had something to say about these things!"
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
10:10 AM
"To many Americans, myself included, the granting of such powers represents a breach of constitutional responsibility on the part of Congress, which alone under the constitution of the United States is authorised to declare war."
Former Chief UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter on the coming war in Iraq..
PBS Interview with Scott Ritter
Guardian Article by Scott Ritter
With regard to CNN's hatchet job on Scott Ritter:
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -- Theodore Roosevelt. For more see Common Dreams
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
4:40 PM
FASTCOMPANY - 25 rules for leaders..
"Fast Company's flagship event centered around those themes for three days of real learning and just-in-time inspiration last week in San Diego. The roster of RealTime speakers included an Irish grocer, a socially responsible potter, and a pediatric physician, among others -- distinct characters who all shared one common message: This is your time to lead!
"In calling Fast Company readers to lead change at work and at home, RealTime speakers shared their ideas about the state of business, the power of people, and the future of innovation. Here are 25 of the smartest insights that we took away from the event."
More at Fast Company
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
4:35 PM
Spiritual Warfare
A couple of months ago my family became involved with a single mom and her children. It turned out that the ex-husband was into Satanism and had been hanging around. The mom gave her heart to the Lord a few weeks ago, and since that time the stress and anxiety level around my house has increased. We see it the most in my youngest daughter, who has been assaulted almost nightly with fear.
When you poke a balloon you only make a small dent in one side, but the pressure goes up in the entire balloon. We're all affected. We are all praying more, but we are all getting tired. Last night my wife slept very little. If you think of us this week, please pray for us. We know that Jesus is Lord of all things.
posted by Len Hjalmarson |
8:45 AM
|
 Allelon / Cutting Edge / Relevant Magazine / Shoot the Messenger / Vine and Branches / Jesus People USA / Sacred Future / Tribal Generation / Reality / Waves Church / Matthew's House / Sacramentis / Praxis / Post Boomer / FutureChurch / MethodX / TheOOZE / ginkworld / The Landing Place / ::seven:: / emergent village / Highway Video / emerging church / Sojourners / Ship of Fools / Beyond / Next-Wave / Small Fire / ThePowerSurge / dtour
|
• © 1999-2002 Len Hjalmarson.•
Last Updated on
"Across the Atlantic, in the United States, a debate is about to begin in the US Congress over the granting of sweeping war powers that would enable President Bush to wage war against Iraq, even if such action were unilateral and lacking in authority from the United Nations.
