Fundumbmental

This was 23 seconds of fun:

Elastic Enthusiastic

Give thanks for your mind

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

I hpoe yuor Avdnet is ginog wlel.

Kteih

Merry Debtmas - Madonna and Card

In the face of our North American seasonal consumerist orgy - I offer this:

Spend time not money on your family.
They need you more than your gifts.
Give to the poor not the credit card companies, resist spending shun over spending.

Riches is not money, nor luxury excess.

God bless us every one!

OK

I just erased this post.

It was intended to be about my thoughts on the last post. Something of a retrospective.
(H tells me it reads a smidge "angry")

I guess it might be - but probably because I am angry. I'm angry about a lot of this stuff. Still.

You don't need that - but I had to write something - so here it is.


SOMETHING.


(Mine is a comic heart - I didn't just "want to" I "had to.")

a scary and curious thing

A field guide to blending in at Church

page 17: What to do when your parents drag you to church

First of all - don’t panic.

You’ll probably only need to attend a one hour weekly meeting. You can handle an hour. Assume that your experience will be the same as many others. In many of these places the understanding of God is firmly held with a commercial capitalist world view - as if God is somehow like that blue genie in "Alladin."

The good news is you’ve probably been to the mall before - just look at this experience as a “Jesus store at a Spiritual Mall.” Here they mostly offer spiritual or motivational speeches aimed at the listeners’ personal growth and development. They seem to feel that the best motivation they can offer is to explain how listening to their speeches will make life “better for you.” (If it’s not about “YOU” why would you possibly be interested?)

But not to worry the challenge toward change is seldom so serious that you are expected to actually demonstrate any of the stuff they talk about. Just listen to the speech politely, the writers often throw in a few corn-ball jokes to keep things moving. Sometimes they are genuinely funny.

Anyway, the challenge to change will mostly be stuff to just think about. The audience is just as afraid of being vulnerable as the rest of the world and they are usually too busy with their own lives to be close to others anyway. It's rare that you would be asked about your true self by any of the other people there.

The good news on this front is that anonymity within the larger whole seems to be a pattern. Many of those in the audience with you, find they are able to just listen to the speech without doing much else. The two key things seem to be showing up regularly while “looking the part” and nodding your head at the right times.

Be aware that some of these places have a group of self appointed inspectors that decide who “measures up.” It’s an especially good idea to figure out who these people are and put your best foot forward.

To help you stay motivated,closely watch how people who are "rough around the edges" are treated by this group. (Pay special attention to women who have become pregnant before they got married.) Seeing their collective, quiet, public, disapproval in action is really scary. You don't need that in your life - shame sucks.

It's weird, the speeches are so often about how important it is for us all to love - but watching them make people outsiders for being human, will make sure your personal life is never too well known....




May YHWH help us all!

Evangel-ramblin'

I was going through some notes from a lesson I'd sat in a little while back. The topic was "Evangelism."

I compared some of those thoughts with Donald Miller's teaching at the NYWC Cincinnati. Mr. Miller commented (as he has at various other times and places) about the commodification of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The sense that evangelism has become for many churches a "Buy into Jesus" sales pitch that promises "everything is better with Jesus" by people who know it's not that simple. It reminds me of that tired old Blue Bonnet Margarine commercial ("Everything is better with Blue Bonnet on it!")

*shudder*

Anyway the notes I'd taken were based on a comment Peter Fitch had made - He mentioned that often when evangelism efforts fail a predictable pattern emerges:

For some if a person can't be converted they are to be either ignored or worse resented. Worse still, if that fails there can be a promotion of an environment that moves them somewhere else - creates enough awkwardness and tension that they disappear from the setting. It's sort of a "His way (as WE see it) or the Highway" policy. (shut them up or shut them out)

I thought back to how the people on the margins were treated in pre-war Germany.

*shudder*

Even if that's hyperbole - it gives me pause.

Jesus can't be sold to anyone, even those who have nodded, said "the prayer" and caved to the sales pitch. Many started that way and have been loved beyond that less than perfect beginning into real life.

My point is we must not tolerate "eliminate objections and hang in there to get the sale/conversion evangelism" programs. Evangelism isn't a methodology, an explosive device, or a belt notching system toward getting your "Extra especially approved by Jesus" badge.

People are loved to God, by people who are living the love of God. Love one another as He has Loved us - that will be more than enough evangelism for all.

STAND UP!

PLEASE RALLY YOUR CIRCLE OF FRIENDS AT CHURCH!

The STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY campaign is slated for October 15 & 16. Let your friends know - poverty is intolerable!

The "Stand Up" Campaign is a challenge to raise awareness for the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which all 191 UN nations signed onto in the year 2000.

The purpose of the action is to raise awareness of the MDGs and to publicly demonstrate to policy makers the growing global support for the eradication of poverty.

When you STAND UP up on October 15/16, you will be joining people around the world reminding our leaders of their promises, including the promise to cut world poverty in half by 2015. (And set an official Guinness World Record for the greatest number of people ever to Stand Up Against Poverty!)

I am asking you to join in to reject poverty as "normal," and moreso, to speak out for those who have no voice.

Ask your Pastor to lead the congregation in a Stand Up Moment just a short introduction of the campaign with a moment of reflection on what it means to take a stand against injustice and poverty, followed by a prayer.
If your set up for it use the 30 second PROMO then say a word or two before the prayer. (Be willing to lead it!)

Here's the link to the STAND UP campaign.

Here's the Dave Matthews Band promo.

Yes! My Exlax endorsement came through!

  

I'm liking the graphic creation and the few thousand words these comics provide me. I'd love to know what you all think of them.

Penn Ave. (Yes he really did say this...)

Megachurch #354

More Comics

At the potluck
and
Filler Footage

A comic or two

A comic.
and another

140 government bucks a week

I sat today with some of the people I work with. We sat at the park near the border and watched the maxi-SUV's pulling three bedroom 5th wheel trailers, and uber RV's roll by. Boats, ATVs, you name it - they all joined the parade.

My friends faced the cavalcade bravely. They told me it's hard to watch when you live on less than 140 government bucks a week. We watched and chatted, one borrowed a dollar from another to buy a used book from the sale the library was hosting nearby.

The afternoon waned.

It was a surreal experience. Watching the advantaged, (or at least the "credit worthy") cruise on, while sitting quietly and speaking with these who have so very little. They all bear their hardships with nobility when they can, and with grit when they cannot.

They all need our help - my help and your help. Look about - they are there; the fractured, the forgotten, the forbidden. Give them first the regard and dignity we all should give one another. Then as you are able, (and sometimes when you think you are not) give them what advantage you can - money, time, equality, deference, whatever you can give they have so little otherwise.

We would do well to remember that for some people, a chance for a coffee and a donut are reason enough to change a day's schedule and a little of the milk of human kindness a very welcome surprise.

We are the forgiven - they are ours to heal, remember, and liberate - ours to love.

Express Lane

Ok here's a new rule:

The person in the grocery store express lane immediately behind the guy with more than 10 items, gets to pick which items DON'T go home with him.

I will always choose toilet paper, tylenol and desserts first - so you've been warned!

I hate that! We were in the "express lane" however the management wasn't insightful enough to assign an express cashier. So we all smoldered while we waited. She methodically took each item and slowly scanned it. (Sometimes too slow for even the reader - so she had to do it twice!) The express lane turned into the "express your frustration quietly" lane.

Arrrgh!

Time

So I've not blogged in a LONG time. Time is a problem for me - a sort of dsychronia I suffer from. I too easily loose track. I am aware of time in a way that is different than most. I'm not sure if this is a gift or a burden.

Anyhow, I just seem to be doing other things. Work, life etc. and then it's time for bed. With the kids home on Summer VAC we are very often doing family stuff during my "not working time."

It hasn't helped that I have not set up my studio yet - all in due time.

So, Thanks for tuning in and stopping by, I'll try and write again (with more pith) soon.

K

Insight at the roadside

I was walking home today after fighting with a lawn mower and over grown grass at our new place for an hour. I had to go and do it since it was the last day before three soild days of rain. On the way home I was really tired, since I had already put in a full day at the office before mowing.

Anyway on the way home, a car pulled over and I soon realized that I had been "picked" as a possible prospect by our local Mormon Summer Missionaries. Through the car window one of them offered me a card which I politely declined.

He shrugged when I said "no thanks" - it was no biggie, they drove off - I walked on.
That's because I don't think they cared about me. I thinn they cared about their quota. I was just another "try" to them. When I said "no thanks" it was no biggie, they drove off - I walked on. There's plenty of fish in the sea.

When the priority is the process - and not the person, you can forget the person and just start the process with another.

How much can we learn from this when it comes to our own hopes to communicate Christ's desire to connect with others? When will we look at other's eyes and not our own agendas?

This is bound to PO somebody

The blog Antidote wrote a piece based on an open letter by Pam Slim

Some may take offense at the rules named but, nomenclature aside, it's on target. We in the church like to shine up our junk and make it look pretty for our showcase Sunday morning spectacles. It rubs our fur the wrong way when someone suggests that we are human, and so have a tendency at times, to behave as an ass. That's just not polite.

The sooner we drop that, the better. John Doe knows that our flesh and his are the same. Plainly said, he just doesn't believe the suits and ties, dresses and shiny shoes are the way the people wearing them really are. Our pretense and posturing just creates an interpersonal distance between us and him. (And if you just read that and think I was ranting about clothing - you missed it.)

So, here are the 10 points Pam makes, bent for my purposes of talking about church. For each point she provides a paragraph in her open letter, you may wish to read that too.

1. Don't spend tons of money to try and change your church culture.

Our culture will always be defined by what is truly valued by the decision-makers. (I think I read somewhere that it's supposed to be something about loving God and others.) SO insist the leaders are outrageously loving!

Flat out abandon any plan or action that doesn't fit that mode. If it's well intentioned, and committee approved, but won't be understood as love - go back to the drawing board. People, not money, change culture.

2. Stop running your church like the Mafia

Ahh the tyranny, the complete control, the decision makers, the ability to crush opposition, the unspoken codes of conduct and the rewards of being a "made" member - it's all there. Stop.

3. Spend time with the people in your church in their context - not the church's

So often it's about the church's agenda getting moved forward. After all, that's what we are there to do - God's work. But that just lends itself to perpetuating the artificial. It is in the vulnerability of shared human experience that we forge and temper the bonds that permit this extravagant love we are called to live out. You cannot love someone you don't know. You cannot know someone you don't spend any time with.

4. Teach people how to love God.

This could be it's own blog post, but I have to be brief. Let's admit that the "read your bible & pray more" solution we've been prescribing for decades as "the solution to life's problem's" is a mythical panacea that needs to be contextualized. Those two elemental Christian exercises aren't enough for what life throws at us.

We need silence, and the fierce courage of true vulnerable friendship, liturgy, ceremony, songs new and old, art, laughter, tears and so much more - all marshaled in concrete spiritual disciplines that help us and teach us to better love God. A truism I often repeat is "In order to see - we must look, in order to hear - we must listen, in order to create, we must persist. (it seems fitting for this too.)

5. Don't ask for your peoples' input if you are not going to listen to it

It's the height of arrogance to form a consensus, then ignore it, so don't.

6. Don't train people until you know what problem you are solving

Training? What is this training you speak of? Why do we run a special school here for the children every Sunday, just to teach them to be life long Christ followers, and we've never trained any of our teachers? (I think it's so the teachers remain humble. It's real hard to get full of pride if your not sure about what your doing.)

7. Ditch the spectacles.

The sermon just isn't that important. I love to speak to a crowd, so that's hard for me to write, but if I'm being honest.... A sermon (the fancy "church word" for a lecture) is the most efficient way of getting a lot of information to a large group of people all at the same time - but it's the least effective way of learning.

Besides, even if the sermon "goes over" every week it's less than 4 tenths of one percent of the week. So even if your focused and intent on learning during the presentation (and everyone always is) it's just not enough. Teaching is monumentally important - but sermons aren't.

8. Focus on the "what" that people do, not the "how" or "when" they do it

Lots of people in the church serve tirelessly, and never get so much as a nod from the pulpit or anywhere else. We chalk it up to "reasonable service" when the truth is that most pastors would do well to put away their sermon notes for the next week and just spend their time celebrating the men and women who make this thing we call church "go" every week.

9. Watch the burnout

Yours and theirs. Face it the church is the black hole of need. That's the point. "Come to me all you who are heavy laden..." is what the Master said. So it's not surprising that even with a fully developed "I am weak but but He is strong' mentality people will over do it. We take church so very seriously, but often for all the wrong reasons. After you stop working/volunteering/doing for this church there will be someone else to take your place.

You're just not that important to it all. But the "YOU" part of you is vitally important to God. So stop, drop, and roll. Stop believing your own hype about the deadlines and the fact that the sky will fall if that thing doesn't happen, drop the idea that you are the only Jesus some people will every see. (You aren't, and I have verses to prove it.) and roll with the punches.

Will somebody get PO'ed if you drop the ball? Maybe. If they love you and you own your crap - it will be fine. If they love their program more than you, you'll at least learn where their allegiances are.

10. Forbid people to work while they are on vacation

PERIOD. Refuse to allow programs to use people up. Set volunteer service term limits for everyone. Close the church at least one Sunday a year and go do something together that expresses your love for each other and the reason Christ died for us all.

But what if...

I was on a drive to our office in St. George. It's a 35 minute inescapable slice of time I need to carve out of a day that includes the St. George office. Time to think.

I was considering the nature of holiness. It's an area where I've known a few theologians to do some verbal and mental gymnastics because it's such a big idea. Some of them wanted me to believe that God's holiness is evidenced by His perfection. In an effort to explain this idea "holy" they paint a picture of "the most perfect-est ever ever." (Ok that last bit was a paraphrase.)

Their reasoning seemed to be this: He is perfect ergo He is holy. Now I am NOT rejecting either idea (God's holiness or God's perfection) But I am asking a question. What if the two are wholly independent of one another? God is perfect. God is holy.

I just can't get how I am to be holy as God is holy (Lev. 11 et al) IF holy means perfect. I'm human, inherently and definitively imperfect. This is where the gymnastics start. "Well we can never be as holy as God is, but we work toward it as a goal. But it doesn't say "try " or "strive" it says "be."

So I'm going to assume I’m onto something and ask my question: What if holy means true? It would be easy to confuse pure truth with perfection. The holiest of holies = the truest of truth?

I just know I can't be perfect. I can barely do powerless. And even if I was to “exceed my programming” as it were, and act perfect - I'd still have to contend with my motives and choices all the internal dialog that precedes any human action (Our faith is what we choose AND do.) I can't be holy if holy means perfect.

But if holy means true, God loses no ground - He is completely true ever and always. But since truth (in regard to humanity) is always in the process of being revealed, (Bible, Technology etc.) it at least seems plausible that I could be always working to be more true. More true, more aware of what is true about me and around me.

Be true as God is true: May He guide us in all truth.

King of the Hill Church

via freeway church cohort

People change slowly

I had an old friend who worked at a small rural church in the Northern part of Ontario. In the office he'd made from a basement side room, he had a desk, always littered with pages of one sort and another. Always on top of those papers was a heavy, ten inch long, brass desk sign like the ones people have for their names. It only had three words on it, my friend kept it there to remind him of this truth: "People change slowly."

Much of current evangelism efforts seem to ignore that truth. If you search the bible for the word "evangelism" you'll soon find it's not there. But that is not necessarily meaningful since the words "evangelist" and "evangelize" are there.

They mean "tell the good news." The angels evangelized. They brought "good tidings of great joy" in Luke 2, Jesus also when he brought "glad tidings of the kingdom of God" in Luke 8. "Evangelize" then is the parent of our word "evangelism." Evangelism is a term we've assigned to the process of discipleship.

Here's where I tend to get my Irish up. Discipleship has never been about proclamations, declarations, intellectual assent, or Dale Carnegie-esque sales tactics. It has always been about the individual believers modeling the love they learned from Christ to the world.

As that love becomes a greater motivational force in a believer's life - they begin to make a difference in other's lives. When these other people ask "Why are you doing this for me?" and "why do you care so much about us?" opportunities are created to tell them about the "glad tidings of the kingdom of God."

Evangelism needs to be based on love for God and from God. How can we love those we barely know? How can we love as we need to love, apart from God's power to do so? Real evangelism is about profound care for people, not clining to a system style or method.

How can anyone assume that a well presented, (or argued) case for the supremacy of Christ's teaching is the same as "good tidings of great joy?" How can we assume that the listener, so often ambushed by the discussion is now a disciple, or convert, because they agreed with what we told them? Did they expect this to be part of their day? To me it seems like a quick fix, so that people can "check off" the evangelism box on their "Now Jesus will really love me" score card. (As if he could love any of us more?)

And let's say that despite these confused motivations and methods the listener does hear the love that motivates it, and God uses that to help them hear His call of love and forgiveness.

Too often it ends up going down the most familiar road, assuming the facts are enough. People form new believers classes for these newest followers and spoon-feeding facts - western culture style. If you know the facts you'll know what's needed. (That doesn't work for simple stuff like bike riding and tieing our shoes why people think it will work for being a disciple is beyond me.)

The teaching style in the east is quite different from here. Being a disciple in eastern culture meant grafting your life to a teacher (rabbi). Not only did you sit under their lessons, but you lived in close proximity to them - you shared life with them. They showed you what their lessons meant practically, day to day by modeling them, you showed your gratitude and indebtedness by serving them as a receiver of their knowledge. It is a time, and life, intensive interaction.

People change slowly, and to assume otherwise is to ignore the obvious. Discipleship must only ever be about love. Discipleship has always, and will always take a lifetime, portions of which we can share together. The sooner we embrace that irresistible fact, the sooner we will benefit from the fruit true discipling can produce.

From - church in the desert

You need to read this first: Church in the Desert

Mark Balfour commented about his Lenten experience. He focused on the temptations thrust before Christ by the devil. I really appreciate his notes.

Stones to bread - as Mark calls it "something that is easier to swallow." It's the path of least resistance, the way we are all prone to take, the one that causes the fewest cuts and bruises. It plays on our natural aversion to pain. For a long time now I've had a real hatred for the role "nice" has played in the church. It takes the stones of harsh reality and turns it into the Wonder Bread we so often embrace "niceness."

It's so much easier to eat that fluff than speaking the truth in love, enduring the wounds of a friend, being real about the struggle faith is, and so many other things. These soulful things are like stones and we easily see them as too hard, too messy, and too painful to endure - so we decide to "just be nice" and do something else - anything but the hard bit. After all, it's less painful - and pain is bad right?

The religiosity that is born out of this kind of path is smug and patronizing. It's the "big fat fake" that demands we all deal with the veneer and not the substance. It presumes pain is negative and comfort is positive. Authenticity (according to Christian Existentialism) is the degree to which one is true to their own personality, spirit, or character, despite the pressures of being in a material world. This "Wonder Bread" is about relieving that pressure.

Throw yourself off - Ah the grand martyrdom! Give your all and surely God will come to the rescue! Look it says it here in the bible - "He has given his angels charge over thee..." (it's always more pious in KJV) How many families of ministers (lay and other) have been sacrificed on this altar? So often the assumption is that the task that needs done for the church is the "Kingdom of God" task - so you'd best seek it first and God will fill in the gaps at home. Guess what? It ain't and He often doesn't. (Because He loves you.)

The Kingdom of God task - what will change the whole world - is always about your journey toward Christlikeness, it's what Mother Teresa called "small things done with great love." It's a first things first issue. You are the only you on the planet. If you don't see to the spiritual matters you should it will be for show.

You can be the greatest servant in your church but if you neglect your family and friends to do that - you're blowing it. Andy Stanley reminds us that there will be someone in the church's future who will do what you do. But NO ONE BUT YOU will be the unique expression of God's grace in your circle of family and friends except YOU. Nope - only YOU, amongst the 6 billion on the planet. As my friend McNair always says "IF you don't do you - you won't get done!"

Kingdom, power and glory - the offer is to be large and in charge. It seems to be a misfit thought among the churched. But every collection of people has "top dogs." It's just that in the church we make sure that there's a prescribed dose of humility attached to every position. The pharisees had that act down pat.

Piety mingled with scorn, all to have the final say in what was godly and what was not. Shame mongering, judgementalism, whatever tools need to be employed. Control it, manage it, Like in the wizard of OZ "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!''

For my part I pray God sends me much grace. I know some of what makes me the bread eating, base-jumping, glory seeking shadow I am. The moment I forget that - I fall into it. The moment I look down my nose at others for being frail like me - I am doubly guilty.