She’s here!!!!

Introducing

Cloe Anna Jayne Klinefelter

which means -

“God is the gracious giver of new life”

born October 29, 2003, 8:04 PM (Pacific Time)

7.00 lbs.

20 inches

Mom, Dad, and Cloe are all doing well and we’ll be home sometime Friday afternoon. Thank you ALL so much for your prayers, love, and support.

View pictures of us here.

Cool web site with real time traffic – check it out here. It’s great if you live in LA! Probably won’t need it in Kentucky though!!

Lots of new pics at the PhotoSite – Sarah @ work, Fuller’s Campus, ResCom Baby Shower, and the Letherer’s Baby Shower (lots O’showers – we’re pretty clean now [ha] and we have a lot of baby stuff).

Just about 2 weeks to the due date. We’re very excited and considerably overwhelmed at the same time! (! I use !!! too much!!!) Monday (the 27th) we have our next doctor’s check-in. We’ll probably get a better idea of how things are progressing then.

Remember the Transformers? I loved them as a kid! Still remember coming home from school, grapping a pop-tart (cold) and some milk, setting down and watching Transformers and GI-Joe (not to mention Tiger-Cats). I wonder if the episodes and movie are on DVD?

Looks like plans are in the works for a Live-Action/CGI Transfromers movie. I’m sceptical, but it could be cool. Interesting link on Metaphilm (which is a cool website by the way) about an interpretation of the Transformers movie as part of the communist conflict. Check it out.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately (well, kinda the last 28 years or so!) about that increasingly elusive word/concept/idea/thing – “Church”. It seems that whenever I’m in a conversation about the emerging church, youth ministry, or the like, we get to the point where we are trying to define “church”. There is even a website called “What is Church?”

I think there is a general agreement that church as it is presently done in the US/Western world is not working. However, we seem to be at a bit of an impasse as to what “church” really is. It is almost as if we assume that if we could just get a coherent, universal, agreed-upon definition of this weird thing called “church” then everything would be ok and we could fix what’s broken.

Here are a few thoughts:

1) The idea that we could conclusively define “church” (even if we base it on the NT, church history, cultural-context, or Spirit-inspiration) is considerably modernistic and, not to mention, impossible. So I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to “nail down” a definition that will last for all eternity. It’s good to debate and question, “What is church”, but we should be careful of universalizing our conclusions.

2) Without a doubt our ecclesiology is changing. We’ve moved away/out from Christendom and we shouldn’t try to return or function as if we were still there.

3) Because of this there are various new ecclesiologies that are being offered as the new way – Missional church (ala Lesslie Newbigin), Liquid Church (ala Pete Ward, Zygmunt Bauman), Emerging church (ala Dan Kimball), House/Organic/Simple church (ala Paul Kaak, Neil Cole), Seeker-sensitive church (Bill Hybels, Rick Warren), Ancient-Future church (ala Robert Webber). There are others and there is, of course, lots of overlap between these examples. I take all these experiments as good (even Seeker-sensitive – though it seems, to me, to have the most flaws) and helpful as we try to re-define “church” for the 21st century.

4) I hope we don’t codify any of these expressions as the God-ordained ONLY way to be church. Hopefully we can speak to one another across platforms and recognize benefits and correctives in each new expression of church.

5) I’m also interested in exploring/learning about Bonhoeffer’s idea of Religonless Christianity and the idea of Churchless Christianity. Is that where Liquid Church is coming from?

But at the same time, I must admit, I feel a bit like I’m swimming in a vast sea of uncertainty! I want a bit more cohesion in my own ecclesiology, not a fixed foundation (is that heretical!?), but a life-boat at least that I can rest in and move forward with. What am I trying to say – - I think we’re making some good strides to re-define church but there seems to be a lot of confusion around as well. Some of that confusion (maybe that’s really not the best word- I’m shooting for a muddy water idea) is because of clinging to the past, some from jumping on the latest bandwagon, and some from just a lack of creativity and Spirit-sensitivity. I’m concerned about efforts to narrowly define church as much as I am about defining it so broadly that it has no meaning. I’m glad God’s in control, cause we would just make a big mess of the whole deal!

Good morning at work today. I got a lot of updates done on the Allelous Dia Aeonos Resident Handbook, it’s pretty basic, but always nice to mark something off the to-do list!

Worked on my resume this afternoon. I hope to post it here as a pdf soon. That way if you (honored visitor) are interested in hiring me then you can find out a bit of what I’ve done and the like.

This morning in the office Hannah and I were listening to an mp3 from Search Party 2002 of Andrew Careaga, Spencer Burke, Leonard Sweet, Randy Jumper about E-Tools (i.e. the internet/technology in the emerging church). If you want to have a listen go here. It was interesting and got me thinking (again) about the place of technology and the internet in the kingdom/church. These folks are generally of the opinion that technology is God’s gift to humanity/the church and we should use it to the fullest. I’m not sure I entirely agree. This issue intrigues me and I would love to really deeply dialogue about this sometime in the future (any takers?!).

Briefly, here are a couple concerns (btw – see this article on TheOoze too):

1. Are we missing the message inherit in the media? Sure the internet is a wonderful tool – for certain things – but it does have implicit understanding about how we understand and interpret what we are receiving. What is communicating more the “text” or the “text-carrier”?

2. Are we just getting starry-eyed about the latest gimmick and toy? We (especially in the church?) seem to like to ride the band-wagon. Are we doing that here?

3. I thought I had another, but can’t remember now…

Gotta go to class.

Going to a free screening of Radio tonight – I love living in So.Cal.! (I’ll miss this!)

I found another blog of a Cincy fella, Chad Canipe, who’s doing the emerging church deal and web design. I’m more and more convinced that something like this is what I want to do. Even more than that I think that God is drawing me to this. This is hard for me to tell as discernment is difficult in this area. I am excited about the possibilities, but cautious about how much ego/pride/”hey-notice-me,-I’m-cool” is involved. I want this to be about God’s work in and through me, not my personal glorification. I was reading Henri Nouwen, et al. Compassion last night and it speaks of this and I found helpful and needed.

This is all muddled, naturally enough, because I need a job so as to support the fam. Maybe God is planning on teaching us something by not having a job promptly, but with moving across the country, having our first child (in 3 weeks!), and finishing school, I’d rather he take atleast one major transition out of the way before we move. Anybody out there know of jobs in web design and/or leadership and community development????

It has a been a crazy week around here! Each day from 3:00-6:00 I’ve been in an intensive with Eddie Gibbs on the Emerging Church in the 21st Century. It has been great, but has left little time for reflection. Below is a “reflecto-box” of reflections/notes from this past week. On Weds. Spencer Burke of TheOoze.com came and dialogued with us, I’ll post a “reflecto-box” of stuff from him as well. ~

Hey again,

I was reflecting on a discussion I’ve had lately with Dennis and Jeff (who needs a blog!) re: the article on TheOoze by Jason Zahariades. And with Spencer coming to class on Weds. i read an article by him it deals with some of the same themes as the other one, but in a bit more introspective, reflective (looking back) way.

In both articles and in much emerging church stuff, I think there is a great tension being bandied (is that a word?) about. There seems to be a great struggle, not unlike previous epochs in church history – ala 16th C. reformation, 18th C. great awakening, between reforming the existing structures of church and re-birthing church in new forms. The reality is that both happen. While the “re-birthers” tend to view that only church planting is the way to re-design the church, the “reformers” (in the grammatical sense, not the 16th C. historical sense) have also come to new ways of envisioning the church.

I find myself more in the “re-birthers” camp, I wish for the “re-forming” of the established/institutional churches, but I don’t have much hope. that’s my problem. i think of the Catholic church following the Reformation (historically-speaking) and know that there was what (we Protestants call the) Counter-Reformation. In the 18th C. the Evangelical spirit of the Wesleys and others eventually did spill over into the Church of England.

I’m still convinced that church planting is a more effective means of propagating the gospel and that we desperately need to re-envision how we “do” and “are” church in our postmodern context. Part of that re-envisioning may call for a season of Holy Saturdays (that day between Good Friday and Easter). It’s a liminal time of transition, of now and not yet, of uncertainity and ambiguity. An exile time in a way. I think that this can be an incredibly healing time of re-focus and re-formation if it is approached with a spirit of openness and grace.

At the same time, there is a sense in which we mustn’t throw the baby out with the bath water. There is a need to dig in deep with a group of believers and work out this thing called community, to experience authentic worship, the like. The question, I think, becomes where/how do we make that decision? When is it time to abandon our “standard operating procedure” and strike out for higher ground? When is it time confess that the grass is NOT greener on the other side and we committ to live out our faith (and work out our salvation), with fear and trembling, together in the place where we are planted?

To answer this tension/question requires GREAT discernment and caution. There are certain things that are, I believe, intrinsic about the American conception of church that are fundamentally flawed (individualism for example, which is, by the way, also prevalant in Jason’s article), but what church does not have flaws? I guess a follow-up question becomes, when do those flaws become such that we must discard/discredit that way of being church? That may sound harsh, but we have done it over and over again in church history. Which is part of the problem, as much as it may be part of the solution!

This is the very issue at stake presently for the Episcopal/Anglican church. Does/should homosexuality split the church? Is it an irreconcilable flaw that cannot be tolerated? I, while fully affirming the sanctity of marriage and my understanding of Scripture and God’s design to be that heterosexual unions in the context of a covenant marriage are what God prefers, am not entirely convinced that the church should split on the matter. Can we live with this ambiguity and difference of opinion in the same house? Maybe we can, maybe we can’t….. I’m don’t really know! Much to think about!

Started a new class to day, Emerging Church in the 21st Century with Eddie Gibbs. I’m auditing which will allow me to learn without the pressure of earning a grade, which I like very much. The class seems like it will be great! We’ll follow the outline of his book, ChurchNext, but will go beyond what the book offers. Weds. Spencer Burke of TheOoze is coming over to talk with us, it will be open to the community so if you’re in the area come on by! I’ve never met Spencer and look forward to dialoguing with him about the emerging church, postmodernity, faith, and such.

Here are a few notes I took from Eddie today (forgive me if they are not exact quotes, rather my interpretation of his wisdom – I guess you could call it the hermeneutics of Eddie!)

‘We are always an emerging, pilgrim, becoming church until Christ returns’

‘We not only need a Church Growth Department, but we need a Church Euthanasia Department as well’

‘Most church systems (read denominations/structures) can be re-engineered’

‘The church is living God’s future now, not trying to preserve the past.’

Very good and interesting stuff, I’m looking forward to learning more and to the dialogue.

OK, the PhotoSite now has Baby Shower pics – - – click here.

Sarah and I watched The Pianist last night. Powerful film and a beautiful portrayal of mercy and grace and survival and music. Oh, the music!