Dreaming

“I do that which is now necessary for that later to be.”

Indeed. Dreaming with you Alan.

Infection VS church?

So this question came to me via email today:

“The question that I want to start asking is, how can we start infecting people with the message of the Kingdom? If church becomes a habit like smoking or biting your nails, it loses its life transforming ability, but if we start to think of transmitting TRUTH like a virus, it becomes like an epidemic. If we can mobilize enough infectious people, those who want to resist won’t be able to keep up with the rapid transformation of the social epidemic of Unconditional Love sparked by Jesus.”

On the one hand, I agree with this. The Kingdom-way is infectious. A contagion of hope in a world of despair. Church – the vibrant community of Jesus people – should spread like a virus – creating and birthing in all the unexpected places.

On the other hand, I’m not so sure that the “transforming ability” of the church is antithetical to habit. In fact, I might even go so far as to suggest that we are transformed by our habits. Our unlearning of sinful, destructive, idolatrous behaviour that is ingrained in our lives takes the even more powerful adoption of healthy patterns of living. We need habits of faith, ongoing developments that slowly chip away at the veneer of self-assuredness and pride. A virus can jump-start the process but we need constructive patterns to replace and subplant our broken wontenness.

Liturgy is a habit.
Prayer is a habit.
Worship is a habit.
Meditation is a habit.
Community is a habit.

Can these life-giving habits become destructive? Sure. Can we pervert the very things that help us enter into a transformative relationship with our Creator? Yup. But that’s not because all habits are evil and sinful, its because of our own self-addicted bent, we need continuous intervenous infusions of Grace.

On Sleep

Sleep Therapy by Lauren Winner:

I don’t like the man who doesn’t sleep, says God.
Sleep is the friend of man,
Sleep is the friend of God.
Sleep is perhaps the mot beautiful thing I have created.
And I myself rested on the seventh day..
But they tell me that there are men
Who work well and sleep badly.
Who don’t sleep. What a lack of confidence in me.”

YouTube – King of the Hill- Church!

An insightful commentary on American Christianity/Church via the prophets on the Hill…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtI2pa2m5cg]

Queen City Mission: The Church of the Nazarene's Assessment of Their Cincinnati Churches

Queen City Mission: The Church of the Nazarene’s Assessment of Their Cincinnati Churches:
“It is good to see a mainline denomination honestly ask, ‘What will it take to adapt to a shifting cultural context?’”

Full report here.

From the report:

Many churches of the Cincinnati area have compassionate ministries in the form of food pantries, clothing depositories, and resources to help in finding housing, and emergency help. However, in reference to taking a strong sense of mission to urban areas, the district churches tend to be very supportive in money and material gifts but there is a definite lack of committed personnel and a reluctance of many of the individual members to get personally involved.

In summary then, one finds that each district is actively involved in urban mission in its largest city. All the districts had other urban areas of smaller size to which they were directing attention also. However, in the large cities in Ohio there have been Nazarene churches established for many years. Many have moved away from the present inner cities which leaves a mission field for each district.

Go Nazerenes! I’m glad folks are asking these questions. I know others are as well, it just isn’t well publicized. Its the doing of the assessment that makes the rub. Its the living that gets us everytime…..

Queen City Mission

This (www.queencitymission.com) looks pretty cool. From the originator:

“It is my hope that Queen City Mission will be a forum that pastors of long existing churches and church planters of new emerging congregations can partner in the important discussion and strategizing of how our churches, both old and new, can through the power of the gospel renew the city of Cincinnati spiritually, socially, and culturally. It is my desire that questions will be asked and thoroughly explored regarding the symbiotic nature of new churches and old churches, how the gospel can cure Cincinnati’s racism problem, how we as pastors should relate the gospel to the growing homosexual community, how can we as the church support and renew the arts in Cincinnati, and many more important issues that the church in Cincinnati needs to addressed in a organized and biblical way.”

Book: When Christians Were Jews (That Is, Now) by Wayne-Daniel Berard

Cowley Publications: When Christians Were Jews (That Is, Now): Recovering the Lost Jewishness of Christianity with the Gospel of Mark by Wayne-Daniel Berard

I like the title. This topic, the Jewishness of our faith, has been striking me lately. It has been one of the emerging themes in the NT2 (Acts-Rev.) class that I’m taking via Fuller and the one I’m teaching at CCS. I’ve been interested in the Jewishness of Revelation, something I never appreciated or understood before and the Jewishness of Jesus and Paul, something I assumed but didn’t really reflect on.

Revelation 14-16 Bible 10 Style

Check it. One of our Bible 10 classes (mostly Sophomores, studying the New Testament) recorded Revelation 14-16. I edited it all together and here are the results:

Revelation 14-16 voices only (mp3 . 6:50 min . 6.3 MB)
Revelation 14-16 with music (mp3 . 6:50 min . 6.3 MB)

For the music I used a couple samples from ccMixter:
this is postmodernismo, tras noche and de construct remix
pianorecordo (which was created by one of our very own CCS students!)

googlepages.com

testing…. 1, 2, 3… testing ….

Sickness (inward/outward blog)

Claiming Our Sickness:

By N. Gordon Cosby

A deep inner sickness has taken over when we can’t feel the suffering of those who are enduring structural violence every hour. We are in the psychological and spiritual condition of Dives who couldn’t see Lazarus on his doorstep, with his wounds and sores being licked by the dogs. He went through his whole life, never seeing this person at his doorstep.

How do we awaken from our sickness of not hearing the screams? First, by claiming our sickness. “God, I’m sick. I can’t feel the pain of another human being created in the image of the same ultimate reality that brought me into being.” Something is very wrong with a mother who can’t hear the crying of her baby in the night. And something is very wrong with me when I can’t hear the crying of the babies and their parents in Iraq and in the Sudan, and when I can’t hear the cries of the babies in my city when 49% of them are living in poverty.

God, I’m sick. I need a savior, a deliverer from the inner cancer eating away, not just at my emotions, but at my very soul. Claiming my sickness is the first part of awakening.

Source: Sermon