Too Much Community?

Dan Kimball has an interesting discussion on Relevant's podcast;

Have we been focusing so much on creating "community" for young adults, that they become so engulfed in the church world they no longer are engaging people outside of the church?

This is the struggle, we need to be builiding community through small groups, but if we just develop these groups to be mini-support groups, or areas for people to spend all of their time, then we are provide a way for people to escape God's call. Suddenly the groups become insular and self-focused because they are focused on "me" and my benefits of getting a strong Christian fellowship. I won't have to worry about being "out there" because the church becomes my community.

However, too much of a good thing can result in stagnant and laziness. If community groups are not preparing people to engage the person in the cubicle next to them, then they are failing to heed God's call...this is not to view them as projects but a desire to become genuine friends.

Ellie

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Fasting (21st Century Version)

Inspired by this experience:

So last Friday night, Ellie was extremely fussing as we were trying to get some sleep. So I got up with her, put her in her swing, turned off the lights, and flipped on the television to watch the NCAA tournament (though without Davidson and Duke in it, does it still count?). I was startled that as soon as the TV lit up the room, Ellie jerked her head to the light and was immediately entranced by the dancing colors and noise.

Having spoken with other fathers who have experienced a similiar situation, I realized, I need to do something about this.

So I am in the first week of my fast. The parameters have been simple no television unless Lindsay and I, together, watch a DVD or "24."

Some may snicker that this would be like fasting with the stipulation that you can eat steak, just not vegetables. But realize that my old routine would be 5pm Around the Horn, 5:30 PTI, 6 Dinner (the meal not the show), 6:30 NBC nightly news, and then whatever primetime junk was on would just flicker in the background. Also, I decided to listen to the Atlanta race on the radio last weekend rather than watch it.

So what has my experience been like...somewhat of a mini-withdrawal. This has been one of my most stressful weeks (interviews, midterm papers, preaching, and ords coming out), so having this drug escape at my fingertips has been a good challenge. I have been able to catch up fun reading, I have been able to hang and focus on Ellie, and I have been surfing the net finding random sites like needgod.com and godtube.

What's next? March 24th is National Shutdown day, so I will be logging off my mac and email to view world atechnologically.

New Feature: Uploaded Articles

I got tired of uploading articles through Geocities, so there is a new feature here--takes more effort on your part--but it takes me a while to scan in these articles, so all seems fair.

Anyway, just click on this link (also off to the side) and I will be updating, occassionally, articles that I have found inspiring, relevant or sermon foder. Also, I will probably start putting up some of my own writings as well...Enjoy.

The magazines I subscribe to, which will be bulk of these articles, are
Christian Century, Leadership Today, Relevant Magazine, Presbyterian Outlook, Runner's World

WB Articles


--P.S. that is why the link to the below post is dead.

Extending the point

After reflecting on Young Adult ministry in the PC(USA) yesterday, I read this article at Relevant Magazine:

Faith No More

Plug and Play

More and more of my conversations with churches have left me discouraged by their perspective on young adult ministry. It seems to be an extension of youth ministry models, which by the way are a huge reason why many young adults no longer find the church appealing.

Many YA's grew up in these add-on youth ministries that fostered little spiritual development for youth but rather conformed them into little church-goers, who one day would grow up and trade in their Youth Group evenings for the big boy traditional service and Sunday School. Or many more of these young adults grew up outside of the church, so they have no familiarity with the church language. The worship service is in a foreign language, and there seems no explicable reason for why they should be educated to be a better Christian, when they do not understand why being a Christian even matters.

So it seems the model of Young Adult ministry being propogated in the PC(USA) church is a bait-and-switch model that lures them in with "free food" after the service, opens up the gymnasium for fellowship activities, and creates a "dumbed down" worship service later in the evening, so that once they get settled down and mature, they can join us at 11am. Hmm, sounds like the same things we do for our youth.

If it did not work when they were 17 (or only temporarily, until they left their parents tutilage), why do we think it will work when they are 27? While this may attract a few, my guess is that it attracts the "transfer" young adults who have moved to a new area and are actively searching for a church community.

What about the rest, who realize the shallowness of plug-and-play ministry that is just tacked on to the life of the church and easily removed without altering the hardwiring of the "real and grown-up" community?

Rather than plug-and-play programs, what if authentic relationships are the key connection that restructure the larger community. In other words smaller groups (mentoring relationships and traditional small groups) become the conduit for, not only Young Adults, but the entire community.

Stranger Than Fiction

Just finished a really enjoyable movie, and a few theological points jump into mind:

Predetermenation

Incarnation

Life and Death

Connectedness of life

The main premise of the movie is that Harold Crick hear's the narration of his mundane life, and as things are set in motion for his eminent death, Crick is faced with the "choice" to follow the narrator's story, to live a full life and to love others. The incarnational aspect of the movie is interesting because the Author does not just write removed from the story, but the Author becomes involved in the story.

If you have not seen this, check it out...it definitely is preachable.

Davidson, arrogant?

Great quote in the Charlotte Observer today:

What if Davidson beats [Maryland] today?

"The kids in Charlotte," says Wildcats forward Thomas Sander, "might finally say, `I know where Davidson is' instead of, `Where's Davidson?' "

What else?

"They might have to build another bar in Davidson," he says.

What else?

"We might start to see some arrogance," says Sander, a junior. "That would be kind of cool because you don't usually think of Davidson people as arrogant."

Are you kidding me? Davidson people believe if you didn't graduate from their school, you didn't graduate.

"Athletic arrogance," he says.

I don't know what they are talking about, Davidson grads arrogant?

Just because

94% of my stories begin "When I was at Davidson",

Woodrow Wilson found it too difficult that he had to leave for Princeton U. after two years
and

as a frat brother said to a UNCC grad: "My PE credit is worth more than your diploma."

Does not mean we are arrogant...I prefer pompous, pretentious and self-consumed.

GO CATS!

PTS' Biblical Witness: CRW

Leviticus 14:33-47
God spoke to Moses and Aaron: "When you enter the land of Canaan, which I'm giving to you as a possession, and I put a serious fungus in a house in the land of your possession, the householder is to go and tell the priest, 'I have some kind of fungus in my house.' The priest is to order the house vacated until he can come to examine the fungus, so that nothing in the house is declared unclean. When the priest comes and examines the house, if the fungus on the walls of the house has greenish or rusty swelling that appears to go deeper than the surface of the wall, the priest is to walk out the door and shut the house up for seven days. On the seventh day he is to come back and conduct another examination; if the fungus has spread in the walls of the house, he is to order that the stones affected by the fungus be torn out and thrown in a garbage dump outside the city. He is to make sure the entire inside of the house is scraped and the plaster that is removed be taken away to the garbage dump outside the city. Then he is to replace the stones and replaster the house.

"If the fungus breaks out again in the house after the stones have been torn out and the house has been scraped and plastered, the priest is to come and conduct an examination; if the fungus has spread, it is a malignant fungus. The house is unclean. The house has to be demolished—its stones, wood, and plaster are to be removed to the garbage dump outside the city. Anyone who enters the house while it is closed up is unclean until evening. Anyone who sleeps or eats in the house must wash his clothes.

Hmmm, sounds like painting and putting up cheap wood paneling is not the Biblical thing to do.

Art Show

Thank you for those who stopped by the art show at PTS this weekend. And also thank you for those who left comments. To me art does not finish when the pencil (brush) gets set down, but is an ongoing interpretative dialogue between the artist, the artwork and the viewer.


Also thank you for the people who pulled this together. Doing a show like this was a passing thought I had during my second semester here, but I realized the sheer manpower ('cuse me "personpower") it would take was too daunting.

For those who were not able to make it up there, I think you missed a really unique show. To see such a variety of talent--watercolor, painting, and photography--and expressions within our community was a vivid reminder of the one true Creator.

A Deal With God

In High School, I made a deal with God--I would believe in Him so long as 1) we could never prove aliens existed, 2) the bones of Jesus were never discovered. Well the first seems safe, but with the second it has been alittle nerve racking with all the publicity about the Discover Documentary.

Having just finished watching that...it is appears as though I can still pursue ordained ministry. And feel like it is important after seeing poor argumentation presented through circular reasoning, incomplete facts and biased representation.

1) They would refer to the Gospel accounts to show how the names were representative of Jesus' Family heritage. Yet they would ignore the fact that all four gospel writers believed in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

2) They referenced the obscure apocryphal document the Acts of Philip which was written 400 years CE to show that Mary Magdalene's name was spelled uniquely on an ossuary supposedly placed there 350+ years earlier.

3) They interviewed Dominic Crossan as a reputable theologian whose faith would not be hampered by discovering Jesus' bones. Well of course not since he does not believe in the bodily resurrection from the start.

4) They argue that James, the brother of Jesus, "continued on Jesus' ministry after his crucifixion." Which shows the bias that they believe Jesus to be a really good philosopher, leader, and "anti-government rebel." If that is all Jesus was then who really cares if he has bones or not. If, however, Jesus Christ is more than a rebel, but actually God and if Jesus Christ was bodily resurrected, then it does matter if someone discovered his bones.

This legacy idea of Jesus is a major concern in the church and with nominal Christians. Jesus, and the claims his followers made, would be completely discredited by discovering his body in a tomb. It would result in another religious philosophy as to how to "be a good neighbor." And quite frankly it would be a pretty crappy one at that.

Personally, I think the question they failed to ask was, could this have been a later edition to an already existent and arbitrary family tomb? The use of Aramaic, Greek, Latin names, and Hebrew on the ossuaries seems suspect. Its alignment with a 4th century texts is troublesome. And the "supposed" DNA results could not prove that either of the Jesus/Mary bones were masculine or feminine since it only comes from mitochrondial DNA. Therefore there is no evidence that these names even matched up with the gender of the person inside the ossuary.

So it appears as though my faith has lived another day.

Photo: Screaming

Grace

Well obviously, grace is a key theological term.
As I was holding my daughter yesterday morning, I was reflecting upon Grace. She was sleeping comfortably in my arms, while I was watching about the tornado which killed many students in Enterprise, Al. While celebrating her new life, there was this subtle reminder that all life is a gift of God's.

I like Lesslie Newbigin's words, "God's electing grace calls into being a people charged with the responsibility of being the bearers of his universal salvation." In other words, the grace of God calls us to be witnesses to other people.

So the question is, did we decide to name her Eleanor Grace because of Paul's great words on grace, or because of the Reformer's focus upon justification by grace. While yes, that is not completely true...We were also influenced by the great words of Bono in Grace

Grace
It's a name for a girl
It's also a thought that changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything

I pray that Ellie would grow up knowing that God's grace will change the world.

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