In our Jesus Dojo we are focusing on Community for 7 weeks, and each week we will look at one aspect of what Scripture tells us about community. Last night we discussed oneness or unity. I enjoyed our discussion as we shared our similar but unique struggles with loving others within the Body of Christ and truly being willing to even try to be one with other people. In our pursuit of oneness the group decided upon a couple of commitments for the following week:
Spend time with someone who claims to follow Jesus but really rubs you the wrong
way. (For some of us this is the Mega Church people. For others it's the evangelists on the street corners in San Francisco. For other it is wealthy suburban dwellers. For others it's the radically right wing Republicans.)
Reading the same chapter of the Bible each day. (starting with 1 Corinthians 7 last night, since some of us have been doing this for a while)
Pray the same prayer at 3 times during the day, morning, noon and night. (We are using Ephesians 3:14-21 as our prayer for this week)
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Misplaced Attention?
My friend Damien has an interesting post about all the attention churches are giving to the DaVinci Code. The other day I saw an advertisement for several different Christian books that "broke" the code or brought the "danger" to light. When I was a youth pastor I spoke to teenagers who were convinced the book was entirely true, and it scared me for them and their intellectual abilities and critical thinking skills more than made me defensive about defending Jesus or something like that. Thanks to Ryan for the link.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Crazy Talk
One of my favorite phrases used to be "crazy talk", and lately I've heard two random people use these two words together to describe events in this crazy world. It's gotten me to think of "crazy talk"...
It's crazy that I can love spending a week with middle schoolers from a nearby huge church in the suburbs while we put them through a week long Jesus Dojo in San Francisco while at the same time they drive me insane and their lives thoroughly convince me that there is little hope for the future of America...But I still think it was an amazing week and want to do it again...what the crap?
It's crazy that I was a part of the leader/speaker meeting for a conference about doing church the other day...sitting at the big kid table...fielding questions about this little non-profit called ReIMAGINE that for some reason intrigued everyone at the table.
It's crazy that I enjoyed listening to Donald Miller speak at this conference, while I was slightly disgusted at how excited everyone was to listen to Donald Miller and buy his latest books.
It's crazy that the more I try to give away my CD's and books and clothes while not buying more I am given more CD's and books and clothes every day, most of them better than the stuff I had before.
It's crazy we're going to have a second child in a few months and we are talking about moving into San Francisco just before that point.
It's crazy that thinking about the poor and oppressed of the world is the new "hip" thing to do as conservative evangelicals. It's also crazy that while some things are being done mostly there are more people who just like to read Bono quotes and read the Sojourners email newsletter.
It's crazy how easy it is for me to say I'm over deconstruction and negativity but slip into sarcastic and mean comments directed towards those I disagree with.
It's crazy that I can go to the neighborhood BBQ and try to get to know people, but we spend almost the entire time talking about each other's houses and how big/small they are and what improvements we are doing...I'm talking hours and hours of talk here.
It's crazy I have no idea how much of my salary will be supported by the local church that supported 1/3 of it this past year, and I haven't even spent 10 minutes thinking about it. Either I really trust God or I'm an idiot or both.
It's crazy that rent in the Mission District of San Francisco is so high.
It's crazy how excited I am about the season finale of 24 and how sad I am that it is the last episode while I have these lofty ideals about how time wasting and/or destructive television watching is to our culture.
It's crazy that we keep making decisions that appear to be very financially crazy but we are just fine and even own a home that has appreciated a couple hundred thousand dollars over the last couple years.
It's crazy that I can love spending a week with middle schoolers from a nearby huge church in the suburbs while we put them through a week long Jesus Dojo in San Francisco while at the same time they drive me insane and their lives thoroughly convince me that there is little hope for the future of America...But I still think it was an amazing week and want to do it again...what the crap?
It's crazy that I was a part of the leader/speaker meeting for a conference about doing church the other day...sitting at the big kid table...fielding questions about this little non-profit called ReIMAGINE that for some reason intrigued everyone at the table.
It's crazy that I enjoyed listening to Donald Miller speak at this conference, while I was slightly disgusted at how excited everyone was to listen to Donald Miller and buy his latest books.
It's crazy that the more I try to give away my CD's and books and clothes while not buying more I am given more CD's and books and clothes every day, most of them better than the stuff I had before.
It's crazy we're going to have a second child in a few months and we are talking about moving into San Francisco just before that point.
It's crazy that thinking about the poor and oppressed of the world is the new "hip" thing to do as conservative evangelicals. It's also crazy that while some things are being done mostly there are more people who just like to read Bono quotes and read the Sojourners email newsletter.
It's crazy how easy it is for me to say I'm over deconstruction and negativity but slip into sarcastic and mean comments directed towards those I disagree with.
It's crazy that I can go to the neighborhood BBQ and try to get to know people, but we spend almost the entire time talking about each other's houses and how big/small they are and what improvements we are doing...I'm talking hours and hours of talk here.
It's crazy I have no idea how much of my salary will be supported by the local church that supported 1/3 of it this past year, and I haven't even spent 10 minutes thinking about it. Either I really trust God or I'm an idiot or both.
It's crazy that rent in the Mission District of San Francisco is so high.
It's crazy how excited I am about the season finale of 24 and how sad I am that it is the last episode while I have these lofty ideals about how time wasting and/or destructive television watching is to our culture.
It's crazy that we keep making decisions that appear to be very financially crazy but we are just fine and even own a home that has appreciated a couple hundred thousand dollars over the last couple years.
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