jason clark : The story of our separation.

Story = Connection = Unity.

The story of our separation:

“We see it in the world, the desire for connection, yet a story/script/narrative of needing no-one and being commitment phobic…maybe collaboration is a better word than committment to our culture.

And do we use eschatology to bring people together, to cause connection, or seperation (a la Tim la haye, or beware going to hell). W e have the most amazing story to tell and retell, and explore, bringing us together.”

A Liturgy for Simple Churches

Here’s something I’ve been working on for VC. It’s a Simple Church Eucharist Rite. Taken and adapted from the Book of Common Prayer. It is a liturgy in process. I welcome any feedback, ideas, suggestions, or affirmations. Feel free to use it too, if you find it helpful. We’re going to experiment with it here and see how (and if) it helps in forming us to be the People of God. We’ll be trying it out at this weekend’s VC AllGroup for starters.

Download here – A Liturgy for Simple Churches.pdf (44 kb)

Questions in My Head

1. what does it mean to be a VC HC?

see Kevin.

2. what does VC leadership look like?

3. who is VC?

mission – great commission

purpose – great commandment

Audio Files: NT Wright – Future of the People of God talks

From the good folks at Open Source Theology.

The main talks given by Tom Wright at the Future of the People of God conference are now available for download.

Session 1: God’s future for the world has arrived in the person of Jesus

Session 2: Understanding and implementing Jesus’ gospel in the present

Session 3: Reimaging our mission as God’s agents of new creation in the world

Session 4: Fulfilling God’s Kingdom project for the world as a mission-shaped church

I’m listening now to the last one… good stuff! Go get ‘em.

When Friends Come to Town

Its only Monday, but I’m already excited about the coming weekend. Friends coming to town Friday – Alice and Matthew Smith. Matthew is performing in Florence, KY and they will be staying over at the Brownhouse. Info on the performance here. Matthew’s Blog here. His main website here. Free Download sample of his music here. Matthew is an extremely talented fella, who I, unfortunately, don’t know very well – but look forward to getting to know better this weekend. Alice and I have known each other since high school… oh, the stories…. and we went to college together too. These are good people. I look forward to sharing some time with them this weekend.

Saturday (at 6:00 PM, for those who wish to join) we’re having a VC AllGroup. I’m looking forward to this gathering of the our larger spiritual community. It is needed. My prayer this week is “for the unity of the network”.

Reflection: I think Unity and Centralization are not synonyms. They ain’t the same. I think we should have a sense of unity as a network – that does not (necessarily) mean that we are centered in the hierarchical sense. I think unity is good.

Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam…

There’s a party going on in our backyard. A wedding party to be exact. We had a wedding today. It was a Redemptive wedding – one where Christ was glorified and worshipped and two lives became as one. And there was a drag queen… but that’s a whole other story! Here are some of the reflections I shared with the couple and those gathered.

“Marriage does something to you. I’m not exactly sure how to explain it….but it changes things. And I’m not really talking about external things, the stuff that people can see…. It’s the change inside and it happens very slowly over time. When two people enter into this covenant of marriage – and I use that word “covenant” very deliberately – and especially when it is entered into with God as a participant, lives are altered, grace is bestowed, and people notice.

“You see, marriage is one of those means of grace that God uses like a furnace to form you into who he is creating you to be. This covenant that you share with one another is a beacon of light, proclaiming by symbol and action that peace is possible. Divisiveness is not our only recourse – it may be the hardest thing you ever do, but it may also be the most holy……

“….And I think that’s pretty much what God has mind for marriage. It shows the world a glimpse into God’s Kingdom. That is not say that there won’t be times of difficulty, discord, or pain – there certainly will – but when that happens you move together toward reconciliation. When you hurt each other, you choose to forgive. Surely this is a lesson that our world needs hear – and marriage is the prophetic lived-symbol of that learning.

“But let me be clear – to whatever extent that marriage is a testimony God’s reconciliation in the world, it remains such NOT because we chose it to be. As much as we enact our marriages, we are acted upon through them as well. God uses marriage to make us holy. I’m not sure how that sounds. Does that resonate with you? Or repulse you? Perhaps it just seems sort of odd? And, in fact, it is.

“It is quite odd indeed, to say that the God of the universe – the Alpha, Omega, beginning and end, the creator of all that we see – chooses to use an imperfect person in an imperfect relationship set in an imperfect world in order to make us more like him. And yet, I think it is true. If we are to be God’s ambassadors of reconciliation – bringing sight to the blind, release to the captive, food to the hungry, rest to the weary – then God has to change us. And even more basically, if we are to truly love our spouse in the way Leslie read in the scripture earlier we need help. We need God to enter into our messy, self-consumed lives and awaken us. If we are to be intimate and vulnerable with our spouse, we need God to remove those walls that separate us. You can’t do it alone. God uses marriage to do this transforming work.”

a prayer…

“Train us Lord, to fling ourselves upon the impossible, for behind the impossible is your grace and your presence; we cannot fall into emptiness. The future is an enigma, our road is covered by mist, but we want to go on giving ourselves, because you continue hoping amid the night and weeping tears through a thousand human eyes.” — martyred Bolivian priest, Luis Espinal

Church is the People

Despite what you think re: homosexaulity in the church and the current debacle in the Episcopal Church (and to a somewhat lesser, though increasing, degree in the United Methodist Church and PCUSA), the angst that this is forcing people to rethink “what is church”. And while there are surely many different opinions (I have plenty just myself) recapturing the church as the People of God is certainly a redemptive outcome of the whole mess. Take, for instance, this quote from Christianity Today (written, I might add, by our good friend KK :

So, Who Owns the Sanctuary?

“Though it has been a painful process, neither Woodall or Tuttle nor the other members of the new Gove Community Bible Church regret the decision to leave the denomination.

‘It was difficult. We weren’t really fighting for the buildings. We were fighting for the moral values,’ Tuttle says. ‘The United Methodists got the building, and we got the church. The church is the people.’”

Interestingly, this messy situation hits close to home. I grew up in a United Methodist Church in the small town of Paris, KY and worked at First UMC in Hamilton, OH as a youth minister after college. During college Sarah and I attended Christ Church Cathedral in Lexington, KY, an Episcopal Church (and the diocese that Gene Robinson is from). Then during seminary we were part of St. David’s Episcopal Church in North Hollywood, CA. St. David’s is one of the three parishes in LA who have left the denomination – click to read more about that.

Now, of course, we’re part of Vineyard Central in Norwood, OH. My heart breaks for those on both sides of the debate. Divisiveness in God’s church is never a good thing, but neither is unfaithfulness. Its a hard and disturbing place we are in as the church in USA.

Lord, have Mercy.

Christ, have Mercy.

Lord, have Mercy on us!

Upcoming Stuff

October 2nd – VC AllGroup @ The Brownhouse, 6:00 PM, Potluck, Worship, Conversation, and more.

November 12-13th – Regional AllGroup – hosted by VBCC in Lexington, times and places tba.

StrawberryFrog

click on “frogism” and read the children’s story (flash). hum… maybe they’re on to something… maybe its more than advertising…..hum….