Narrative Theology versus Systematic Theology

A couple "Statements of Faith" below. One from Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The other is the Lausanne Covenant, drawn up in 1974. Here's a brief wikipedia article explaining the background. There's also an "organization" (I guess) called the Lausanne Movement.

I post them both here in their entirety to illustrate the difference between narrative and systematic theologies, and how they might translate into different "statements of faith." Interesting to note the differences.

Also, my friend John has posted something similar on his blog, comparing the Nicene Crede with a quote from Milton Friedman. If you have time, compare all four statements and post your reactions.

I'll post mine over the next few days.

Mars Hill - Narrative Theology

We believe God inspired the authors of Scripture by his Spirit to speak to all generations of believers, including us today. God calls us to immerse ourselves in this authoritative narrative communally and individually to faithfully interpret and live out that story today as we are led by the Spirit of God.

In the beginning God created all things good. He was and always will be in a communal relationship with himself – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God created us to be relational as well and marked us with an identity as his image bearers and a missional calling to serve, care for, and cultivate the earth. God created humans in his image to live in fellowship with him, one another, our inner self, and creation. The enemy tempted the first humans, and darkness and evil entered the story through human sin and are now a part of the world. This devastating event resulted in our relationships with God, others, ourselves, and creation being fractured and in desperate need of redeeming.

We believe God did not abandon his creation to destruction and decay; rather he promised to restore this broken world. As part of this purpose, God chose a people, Abraham and his descendants to represent him in the world. God promised to bless them as a nation so that through them all nations would be blessed. In time they became enslaved in Egypt and cried out to God because of their oppression. God heard their cry, liberated them from their oppressor, and brought them to Sinai where he gave them an identity and a mission as his treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, a holy people. Throughout the story of Israel, God refused to give up on his people despite their frequent acts of unfaithfulness to him.

God brought his people into the Promised Land. Their state of blessing from God was intimately bound to their calling to embody the living God to other nations. They made movement toward this missional calling, yet they disobeyed and allowed foreign gods into the land, overlooked the poor, and mistreated the foreigner. The prophetic voices that emerge from the Scriptures held the calling of Israel to the mirror of how they treated the oppressed and marginalized. Through the prophets, God’s heart for the poor was made known, and we believe that God cares deeply for the marginalized and oppressed among us today.

In Israel’s disobedience, they became indifferent and in turn irrelevant to the purposes to which God had called them. For a time, they were sent into exile; yet a hopeful remnant was always looking ahead with longing and hope to a renewed reign of God, where peace and justice would prevail.

We believe these longings found their fulfillment in Jesus the Messiah, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, mysteriously God having become flesh. Jesus came to preach good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted and set captives free, proclaiming a new arrival of the Kingdom of God, bringing about a New Exodus, and restoring our fractured world. He and his message were rejected by many as he confronted the oppressive nature of the religious elite and the empire of Rome. Yet his path of suffering, crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection has brought hope to all creation. Jesus is our only hope for bringing peace and reconciliation between God and humans. Through Jesus we have been forgiven and brought into right relationship with God. God is now reconciling us to each other, ourselves, and creation. The Spirit of God affirms as children of God all those who trust Jesus. The Spirit empowers us with gifts, convicts, guides, comforts, counsels, and leads us into truth through a communal life of worship and a missional expression of our faith. The church is rooted and grounded in Christ, practicing spiritual disciplines and celebrating baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The church is a global and local expression of living out the way of Jesus through love, peace, sacrifice, and healing as we embody the resurrected Christ, who lives in and through us, to a broken and hurting world.

We believe the day is coming when Jesus will return to judge the world, bringing an end to injustice and restoring all things to God’s original intent. God will reclaim this world and rule forever. The earth’s groaning will cease and God will dwell with us here in a restored creation. On that day we will beat swords into tools for cultivating the earth, the wolf will lie down with the lamb, there will be no more death and God will wipe away all our tears. Our relationships with God, others, ourselves, and creation will be whole. All will flourish as God intends. This is what we long for. This is what we hope for. And we are giving our lives to living out that future reality now.

The Lausanne Covenant (1974)

Introduction


We, members of the Church of Jesus Christ, from more than 150 nations, participants in the International Congress on World Evangelization at Lausanne, praise God for his great salvation and rejoice in the fellowship he has given us with himself and with each other. We are deeply stirred by what God is doing in our day, moved to penitence by our failures and challenged by the unfinished task of evangelization. We believe the gospel is God's good news for the whole world, and we are determined by his grace to obey Christ's commission to proclaim it to all mankind and to make disciples of every nation. We desire, therefore, to affirm our faith and our resolve, and to make public our covenant.

1. The Purpose of God


We affirm our belief in the one eternal God, Creator and Lord of the world, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who governs all things according to the purpose of his will. He has been calling out from the world a people for himself, and sending his people back into the world to be his servants and his witnesses, for the extension of his kingdom, the building up of Christ's body, and the glory of his name. We confess with shame that we have often denied our calling and failed in our mission, by becoming conformed to the world or by withdrawing from it. Yet we rejoice that even when borne by earthen vessels the gospel is still a precious treasure. To the task of making that treasure known in the power of the Holy Spirit we desire to dedicate ourselves anew. (Isa. 40:28; Matt. 28:19; Eph. 1:11; Acts 15:14; John 17:6, 18; Eph. 4:12; 1 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 4:7)

2. The Authority and Power of the Bible

We affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety as the only written word of God, without error in all that it affirms, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice. We also affirm the power of God's word to accomplish his purpose of salvation. The message of the Bible is addressed to all men and women. For God's revelation in Christ and in Scripture is unchangeable. Through it the Holy Spirit still speaks today. He illumines the minds of God's people in every culture to perceive its truth freshly through their own eyes and thus discloses to the whole Church ever more of the many-colored wisdom of God. (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21; John 10:35; Isa. 55:11; 1 Cor. 1:21; Rom. 1:16; Matt. 5:17-18; Jude 3; Eph. 1:17-18; 3:10, 18)

3. The Uniqueness and Universality of Christ


We affirm that there is only one Savior and only one gospel, although there is a wide diversity of evangelistic approaches. We recognize that everyone has some knowledge of God through his general revelation in nature. But we deny that this can save, for people suppress the truth by their unrighteousness. We also reject as derogatory to Christ and the gospel every kind of syncretism and dialogue which implies that Christ speaks equally through all religions and ideologies. Jesus Christ, being himself the only God-man, who gave himself as the only ransom for sinners, is the only mediator between God and people. There is no other name by which we must be saved. All men and women are perishing because of sin, but God loves everyone, not wishing that any should perish but that all should repent. Yet those who reject Christ repudiate the joy of salvation and condemn themselves to eternal separation from God. To proclaim Jesus as "the Savior of the world" is not to affirm that all people are either automatically or ultimately saved, still less to affirm that all religions offer salvation in Christ. Rather it is to proclaim God's love for a world of sinners and to invite everyone to respond to him as Savior and Lord in the wholehearted personal commitment of repentance and faith. Jesus Christ has been exalted above every other name; we long for the day when every knee shall bow to him and every tongue shall confess him Lord. (Gal. 1:6-9; Rom. 1:8-32; 1 Tim. 2:5-6; Acts 4:12; John 3:16-19; 2 Pet. 3:9; 2 Thess. 1:7-9; John 4:42; Matt. 11:28; Eph. 1:20-21; Phil. 2:9-11)

4. The Nature of Evangelism

To evangelize is to spread the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures, and that as the reigning Lord he now offers the forgiveness of sins and the liberating gift of the Spirit to all who repent and believe. Our Christian presence in the world is indispensable to evangelism, and so is that kind of dialogue whose purpose is to listen sensitively in order to understand. But evangelism itself is the proclamation of the historical, biblical Christ as Savior and Lord, with a view to persuading people to come to him personally and so be reconciled to God. In issuing the gospel invitation we have no liberty to conceal the cost of discipleship. Jesus still calls all who would follow him to deny themselves, take up their cross, and identify themselves with his new community. The results of evangelism include obedience to Christ, incorporation into his Church and responsible service in the world. (1 Cor. 15:3-4; Acts 2:32-39; John 20:21; 1 Cor. 1:23; 2 Cor. 4:5; 5:11, 20; Luke 14:25-33; Mark 8:34; Acts 2:40, 47; Mark 10:43-45)

5. Christian Social Responsibility

We affirm that God is both the Creator and the Judge of all. We therefore should share his concern for justice and reconciliation throughout human society and for the liberation of men and women from every kind of oppression. Because men and women are made in the image of God, every person, regardless of race, religion, color, culture, class, sex or age, has an intrinsic dignity because of which he or she should be respected and served, not exploited. Here too we express penitence both for our neglect and for having sometimes regarded evangelism and social concern as mutually exclusive. Although reconciliation with other people is not reconciliation with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political liberation salvation, nevertheless we affirm that evangelism and socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty. For both are necessary expressions of our doctrines of God and man, our love for our neighbor and our obedience to Jesus Christ. The message of salvation implies also a message of judgment upon every form of alienation, oppression and discrimination, and we should not be afraid to denounce evil and injustice wherever they exist. When people receive Christ they are born again into his kingdom and must seek not only to exhibit but also to spread its righteousness in the midst of an unrighteous world. The salvation we claim should be transforming us in the totality of our personal and social responsibilities. Faith without works is dead. (Acts 17:26, 31: Gen. 18:25; Isa. 1:17; Psa. 45:7; Gen. 1:26-27; Jas. 3:9; Lev. 19:18; Luke 6:27, 35; Jas. 2:14-26; John 3:3-5; Matt. 5:20; 6:33; 2 Cor. 3:18; Jas. 2:20)

6. The Church and Evangelism

We affirm that Christ sends his redeemed people into the world as the Father sent him, and that this calls for a similar deep and costly penetration of the world. We need to break out of our ecclesiastical ghettos and permeate non-Christian society. In the Church's mission of sacrificial service evangelism is primary. World evangelization requires the whole Church to take the whole gospel to the whole world. The Church is at the very center of God's cosmic purpose and is his appointed means of spreading the gospel. But a church which preaches the cross must itself be marked by the cross. It becomes a stumbling block to evangelism when it betrays the gospel or lacks a living faith in God, a genuine love for people, or scrupulous honesty in all things including promotion and finance. The church is the community of God's people rather than an institution, and must not be identified with any particular culture, social or political system, or human ideology. (John 17:18; 20:21; Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 1:8; 20:27; Eph. 1:9-10; 3:9-11; Gal. 6:14, 17; 2 Cor. 6:3-4; 2 Tim. 2:19-21; Phil. 1:27)

7. Cooperation in Evangelism

We affirm that the Church's visible unity in truth is God's purpose. Evangelism also summons us to unity, because our oneness strengthens our witness, just as our disunity undermines our gospel of reconciliation. We recognize, however, that organizational unity may take many forms and does not necessarily forward evangelism. Yet we who share the same biblical faith should be closely united in fellowship, work and witness. We confess that our testimony has sometimes been marred by sinful individualism and needless duplication. We pledge ourselves to seek a deeper unity in truth, worship, holiness and mission. We urge the development of regional and functional cooperation for the furtherance of the Church's mission, for strategic planning, for mutual encouragement, and for the sharing of resources and experience. (John 17:21-23; Eph. 4:3-4; John 13:35; Phil. 1:27)

8. Churches in Evangelistic Partnership


We rejoice that a new missionary era has dawned. The dominant role of western missions is fast disappearing. God is raising up from the younger churches a great new resource for world evangelization, and is thus demonstrating that the responsibility to evangelize belongs to the whole body of Christ. All churches should therefore be asking God and themselves what they should be doing both to reach their own area and to send missionaries to other parts of the world. A reevaluation of our missionary responsibility and role should be continuous. Thus a growing partnership of churches will develop and the universal character of Christ's Church will be more clearly exhibited. We also thank God for agencies which labor in Bible translation, theological education, the mass media, Christian literature, evangelism, missions, church renewal and other specialist fields. They too should engage in constant self-examination to evaluate their effectiveness as part of the Church's mission. (Rom. 1:8; Phil. 1:5; 4:15; Acts 13:1-3; 1 Thess. 1:6-8)

9. The Urgency of the Evangelistic Task

More than 2,700 million people, which is more than two-thirds of all humanity, have yet to be evangelized. We are ashamed that so many have been neglected; it is a standing rebuke to us and to the whole Church. There is now, however, in many parts of the world an unprecedented receptivity to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are convinced that this is the time for churches and para-church agencies to pray earnestly for the salvation of the unreached and to launch new efforts to achieve world evangelization. A reduction of foreign missionaries and money in an evangelized country may sometimes be necessary to facilitate the national church's growth in self-reliance and to release resources for unevangelized areas. Missionaries should flow ever more freely from and to all six continents in a spirit of humble service. The goal should be, by all available means and at the earliest possible time, that every person will have the opportunity to hear, understand, and receive the good news. We cannot hope to attain this goal without sacrifice. All of us are shocked by the poverty of millions and disturbed by the injustices which cause it. Those of us who live in affluent circumstances accept our duty to develop a simple lifestyle in order to contribute more generously to both relief and evangelism. (John 9:4 Matt. 9:35-38; Rom. 9:1-3; 1 Cor. 9:19-23; Mark 16:15; Isa. 58:6-7; Jas. 1:27; 2:1-9; Matt. 25:31-46; Acts 2:44-45; 4:34-35)

10. Evangelism and Culture

The development of strategies for world evangelization calls for imaginative pioneering methods. Under God, the result will be the rise of churches deeply rooted in Christ and closely related to their culture. Culture must always be tested and judged by Scripture. Because men and women are God's creatures, some of their culture is rich in beauty and goodness. Because they are fallen, all of it is tainted with sin and some of it is demonic. The gospel does not presuppose the superiority of any culture to another, but evaluates all cultures according to its own criteria of truth and righteousness, and insists on moral absolutes in every culture. Missions have all too frequently exported with the gospel an alien culture and churches have sometimes been in bondage to culture rather than to Scripture. Christ's evangelists must humbly seek to empty themselves of all but their personal authenticity in order to become the servants of others, and churches must seek to transform and enrich culture, all for the glory of God. (Mark 7:8-9, 13; Gen. 4:21-22; 1 Cor. 9:19-23; Phil. 2:5-7; 2 Cor. 4:5)

11. Education and Leadership

We confess that we have sometimes pursued church growth at the expense of church depth, and divorced evangelism from Christian nurture. We also acknowledge that some of our missions have been too slow to equip and encourage national leaders to assume their rightful responsibilities. Yet we are committed to indigenous principles, and long that every church will have national leaders who manifest a Christian style of leadership in terms not of domination but of service. We recognize that there is a great need to improve theological education, especially for church leaders. In every nation and culture there should be an effective training program for pastors and laity in doctrine, discipleship, evangelism, nurture and service. Such training programs should not rely on any stereotyped methodology but should be developed by creative local initiative according to biblical standards. (Col. 1:27-28; Acts 14:23; Tit. 1:5, 9; Mark 10:42-45; Eph. 4:11-12)

12. Spiritual Conflict

We believe that we are engaged in constant spiritual warfare with the principalities and powers of evil, who are seeking to overthrow the Church and frustrate its task of world evangelization. We know our need to equip ourselves with God's armor and to fight this battle with the spiritual weapons of truth and prayer. For we detect the activity of our enemy, not only in false ideologies outside the Church, but also inside it in false gospels which twist Scripture and put people in the place of God. We need both watchfulness and discernment to safeguard the biblical gospel. We acknowledge that we ourselves are not immune to worldliness of thought and action, that is, to a surrender to secularism. For example, although careful studies of church growth, both numerical and spiritual, are right and valuable, we have sometimes neglected them. At other times, desirous to ensure a response to the gospel, we have compromised our message, manipulated our hearers through pressure techniques, and become unduly preoccupied with statistics or even dishonest in our use of them. All this is worldly. The Church must be in the world; the world must not be in the Church. (Eph. 6:12; 2 Cor. 4:3-4; Eph. 6:11, 13-18; 2 Cor. 10:3-5; 1 John 2:18-26; 4:1-3; Gal. 1:6-9; 2 Cor. 2:17; 4:2; John 17:15)

13. Freedom and Persecution

It is the God-appointed duty of every government to secure conditions of peace, justice and liberty in which the Church may obey God, serve the Lord Christ, and preach the gospel without interference. We therefore pray for the leaders of the nations and call upon them to guarantee freedom of thought and conscience, and freedom to practice and propagate religion in accordance with the will of God and as set forth in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We also express our deep concern for all who have been unjustly imprisoned, and especially for those who are suffering for their testimony to the Lord Jesus. We promise to pray and work for their freedom. At the same time we refuse to be intimidated by their fate. God helping us, we too will seek to stand against injustice and to remain faithful to the gospel, whatever the cost. We do not forget the warnings of Jesus that persecution is inevitable. (1 Tim. 2:1-4; Acts 4:19; 5:29; Col. 3:24; Heb. 13:1-3; Luke 4:18; Gal. 5:11; 6:12; Matt. 5:10-12; John 15:18-21)

14. The Power of the Holy Spirit

We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Father sent his Spirit to bear witness to his Son; without his witness ours is futile. Conviction of sin, faith in Christ, new birth and Christian growth are all his work. Further, the Holy Spirit is a missionary spirit; thus evangelism should arise spontaneously from a Spirit-filled church. A church that is not a missionary church is contradicting itself and quenching the Spirit. Worldwide evangelization will become a realistic possibility only when the Spirit renews the Church in truth and wisdom, faith, holiness, love and power. We therefore call upon all Christians to pray for such a visitation of the sovereign Spirit of God that all his fruit may appear in all his people and that all his gifts may enrich the body of Christ. Only then will the whole Church become a fit instrument in his hands, that the whole earth may hear his voice. (1 Cor. 2:4; John 15:26-27; 16:8-11; 1 Cor. 12:3; John 3:6-8; 2 Cor. 3:18; John 7:37-39; 1 Thess. 5:19; Acts 1:8; Psa. 85:4-7; 67:1-3; Gal. 5:22-23; 1 Cor. 12:4-31; Rom. 12:3-8)

15. The Return of Christ


We believe that Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly, in power and glory, to consummate his salvation and his judgment. This promise of his coming is a further spur to our evangelism, for we remember his words that the gospel must first be preached to all nations. We believe that the interim period between Christ's ascension and return is to be filled with the mission of the people of God, who have no liberty to stop before the End. We also remember his warning that false Christs and false prophets will arise as precursors of the final Antichrist. We therefore reject as a proud, self-confident dream the notion that people can ever build a utopia on earth. Our Christian confidence is that God will perfect his kingdom, and we look forward with eager anticipation to that day, and to the new heaven and earth in which righteousness will dwell and God will reign forever. Meanwhile, we rededicate ourselves to the service of Christ and of people in joyful submission to his authority over the whole of our lives. (Mark 14:62; Heb. 9:28; Mark 13:10; Acts 1:8-11; Matt. 28:20; Mark 13:21-23; John 2:18; 4:1-3; Luke 12:32; Rev. 21:1-5; 2 Pet. 3:13; Matt. 28:18)

Conclusion


Therefore, in the light of this our faith and our resolve, we enter into a solemn covenant with God and with each other to pray, to plan and to work together for the evangelization of the whole world. We call upon others to join us. May God help us by his grace and for his glory to be faithful to this our covenant! Amen, Alleluia!

Narrative Theology

Well they've done it. They've created a label for what we're up to around here.

N a r r a t i v e T h e o l o g y

Turns out what people like Steve Coan and I have been doing has been being done for a few years now. You can google it and find books, blogs, commentaries--even a wikipedia article about it.

Narrative Theology.

In a way, I'm disappointed with the label. In another way, I am comforted, because it seems God is up to something all over the place. And I like that.

Here's a post at a blog by a guy named Ben Sternke that's worth reading. (I added Ben's Blog to my list of "Blogs I Read," off to the right, and that's his picture above.) Ben is a "Ministry Coach" at Heartland Church in Indiana. It will take me hours to get through all this stuff.

Here's a preview of his post:

Christianity is first and foremost a story. It is a history. It is not a set of "timeless truths" or abstract doctrines that we tap into from week to week. It isn't a static system of truth, it's a dynamic story, an unfinished narrative that we live within, and a narrative that we have a part in working out, we help to move the story toward its conclusion.

Sound familiar? Keep reading...

...If we understand Christianity as a story, and read the Bible like the story it is, we realize that the story is going somewhere. And we are part of that story, we have a part to play in moving the story towards its conclusion. We have something to do, and it isn't just to "play nice until Jesus comes," it's to build for the kingdom.

I think he's been stealing our material. (Just kidding.) I hope you enjoy some of what he's written.

--Jon

The Burial of our Shimmering Self

If I had read and simply posted this two years ago, I wouldn't have had to write anything else in this blog. I believe it to be the defining phenomenon in human history, the single(!) insidious plot of the evil empire--the redefining of everything that God gave an original meaning to.

From this one notion hang my entire worldview--my theology, my humanology, my spiritology, my cosmology, and whatever other -ology you can think of.

This notion explains why it's so important for us to have a grasp on how truth works, what lies are and why they are so destructive, and how central identity is in living a rich, full life.

What is this notion? It's spelled out in today's Ransomed Heart Ministries daily mailing:

*****

We come into the world with a longing to be known and a deep-seated fear that we aren't what we should be. We are set up for a crisis of identity. And then, says Frederick Buechner, the world goes to work:

Starting with the rather too pretty young woman and the charming but rather unstable young man, who together know no more about being parents than they do the far side of the moon, the world sets in to making us what the world would like us to be, and because we have to survive after all, we try to make ourselves into something that we hope the world will like better than it apparently did the selves we originally were. That is the story of all our lives, needless to say, and in the process of living out that story, the original, shimmering self gets buried so deep that most of us hardly end up living out of it at all. Instead, we live out all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world's weather. (Telling Secrets)

Think about the part you find yourself playing, the self you put on like a costume. Who cast you in this role? Most of us are living out a script that someone else has written for us. We've not been invited to live from our heart, to be who we truly are, so we put on these false selves hoping to offer something more acceptable to the world, something functional. We learn our roles starting very young and we learn them well. The Sacred Romance, 79, 80

*****

May you first discover who you believed yourself to be, and then may you find who you really are.

Which is another way of saying, may you find Jesus in yourself. Which is another way of saying, may you walk in truth. Which is another way of saying, may you shine like a Christmas tree light in a dark world.

I love you all.

--Jon

Lights

I had a dream. And in my dream I gazed at a lovely Christmas tree, standing in the corner of an otherwise cold, dark, and lonely room.

The tree was decorated with ribbons and tinsel and pretty things. I took in the tree as a whole, then looked more closely at each of the pretty things hanging on it. Someone had taken great care in choosing where to hang each ornament, for they were all beautifully arranged, and seemed to silently speak together of the joys of the season. But I could not tell if it was Christmas day.

There were ornaments on all sides of the tree. I crouched to see some of the ones hanging near the floor, at the back of the tree. It was then I noticed a tiny, shining red light, hanging just above the lowest bow, at the farthest point away from me. I leaned close, so that I could see it more clearly through the branches. In an instant I could see another, and another, and another--finally a whole string of lights were visible to me, wrapped all the way around the tree, from top to bottom.

But none of the others were burning, save the one at the bottom near the back.

I stood again, and looked at one of the dark lights, right in front of my eyes. I could not tell what color it might be. With some anticipation, I gave it a gentle tap with my finger. It did not respond. So I held it firmly with one hand, and gave it two or three firm whacks with my knuckle. Still no light.

I moved to the next, and made the same attempt to bring it to life, with no success. The next, and the next, and the next. At last I gave up hope of seeing any more of the beautiful lights.

I was stirred more deeply by the darkness of these lights than by the beauty of the rest of the tree. I could tell, even in the dim light of the room, that this string of lights would be simply exquisite if only they would shine. Even the tree itself might be thrice as lovely.

The lonely red light looked the more lonely for all the unlit bulbs.

The room was cold and damp, so I put my hands to my mouth and blew hard into them, to warm them. I felt the warmth penetrate my finger tips as the heat of my breath escaped around them. The ornaments and tinsel swayed slightly in the gentle breeze of my breath.

And the light just beyond my hands glowed very faintly for a moment. If I had not been looking directly at it, I would not have noticed at all.

I stood still, wondering if I had seen what I had seen. I blew again on my hands. The ornaments swayed again, and the light glowed faintly--briefly--once again. A gorgeous, beautiful blue! I blew harder this time, allowing most of the air to escape unhindered through my open fist. There was a twinkling sound from the ornaments tinking together, and the blue light shined very brightly--but only for a moment.

Without thinking, I cupped the tiny light between my palms, drew in a deep breath, and slowly released it onto the bulb, as if to catch the light. The glass around the filament seemed to smile as the light grew to full brightness--and stayed lit! I let go of the bulb, and as it settled back into place, it immediately cast a lovely blue glow through the nearby branches!

I reached for the next light, cupping it gently, and blew onto it. Yellow! I let it fall gently back into place, carefully, so as not to cause it to go dark again.

I stepped back to gaze at these two bright lights, and noticed the blue and yellow reflections on the ornaments that were close by. The effect of these two alone was more fantastic than I had imagined the whole string would be. The ornaments took on new colors, the tinsel danced around them.

These two alone had given new life to the upper half of the tree.

I blew on each bulb, pausing to admire the wonderful color of each one before moving to the next. Greens, oranges, purples--even whites. It took many minutes--and no small effort--to reach through the tree to all the lights in the back. The needles of the tree scratched at my face, but I could not notice.

Eventually, every bulb was burning brightly. I stepped back, and the sight took my breath away. The tree had come alive! It moved, it shimmered, it twinkled, it glowed.

And then it shared the warmth of its newfound life with the entire room. It was then I realized, yes, it was Christmas Day.

Thoughts on Truth

What is truth?
--Pilate, to Jesus

Truth is more concerned with one's perception of the nature or character of a thing than with the accuracy of one's knowledge of the facts related to a thing or event.

Satan doesn't spend his time trying to retell history--he spends his time trying to redefine what God has created.

"Lying" is not the opposite of truth. Lying has to do with the retelling of historical events.

Truth is more about clarity than accuracy.

Discovering truth is the experience of seeing a thing for what it is, NOT in knowing all there is to know about a thing. That is to say, it is about sight, NOT knowledge.

Story is the most effective way of communicating truth.

Many times, if not most of the time, clarity contradicts the observable.

Seeing Jesus in a thing is the same as finding Truth.

(The lunar eclipse mosaic above was compiled from an eclipse that was observed in Turkey on April 4, 2006. Here's the link.)

The Importance of Context

A guy goes to work, sits down at his computer, stares at the screen. Takes a sip of coffee, opens his Outlook, checks his mail. Stares at the screen. Checks his planner for the day.

And feels absurd.

Feels no bigger than the information on his screen.

Drinks more coffee. Thinks about the job opening he put in for last week, and feels a tiny pang of hope. Something different for a change.

Then his phone rings, and the light fades. Back to the screen.

He has lost all sense of the context of his life. If we could help him feel the connectedness of his little screen within the context of his department within the context of his company within the context of his industry within the context of his society--then he might feel a sense of relevance, of role.

Having a sense of identity is never enough. There must be a sense of role as well. The feeling that what I do matters because it is part of this greater thing.

Jesus has given us a chance to feel like our identity is right for our role.

The deceiver takes great pains to undo us in both ways. If he can't get the one, he'll go after the other.

I have spent a lot of time in the last few years trying to understand how crucial identity is and how the New Covenant signed by God with red ink makes everything new again.

But role is something entirely different, I think.

Find a bored man, and you will find a man who has no sense of his role within the greater story. He may have a very clear sense of what he can do, but if he doesn't understand why his efforts matter, then motivation is absent.

A role can only be played within a pretty well-defined context of some sort. A player on a team knows his role clearly, because he has been trained in the context of his sport.

Today's believers have very limited sense of role, in part because we have lost nearly all sense of the context of the body of Christ in this world. And we've bought into all sorts of false Christian contexts in the name of "going to church."

Egads.

More on this later...

Spam Wisdom V

Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carter. If he ran unopposed he would have lost.

Anyone who profits from the experience of others probably writes biographies.

He that bringeth a present findeth the door open.

What men want is not knowledge, but certainty.

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.

There will be no lasting peace either in the heart of individuals or in social customs until death is outlawed.

Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.

The man who suspects his own tediousness is yet to be born.

Most of us die with much of our beautiful music still in us, un-sung, un-played.

When you fall, don't get up empty handed.

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

Spam Wisdom IV

There is nothing certain, but the uncertain.

The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.

It was prettily devised of Aesop, "The fly sat on the axle tree of the chariot wheel and said, what dust do I raise!"

Art is a form of catharsis.

For economists the real world is often a special case.

The one thing people are the most liberal with, is their advice.

The greatest things are accomplished by individual people, not by committees or companies.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

The body is an instrument, the mind its function, the witness and reward of its operation.

I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.

If you don't make things happen then things will happen to you.

A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy.

Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.

People who know the least always argue the most.

Action may not always bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

Spam Wisdom III

If there was no moral evil upon earth, there would be no physical evil.

If the young knew and the old could, there is nothing that couldn't be done.

You must begin to think of yourself as becoming the person you want to be.

I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.

The wrongdoer is more unfortunate than the man wronged.

Never celebrate until you are really out of the woods. They might be behind the last tree.

The two big advantages I had at birth were to have been born wise and to have been born in poverty.

It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.

The tiny madman in his padded cell.

Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one.

France has lost a battle. But France has not lost the war.

He that is well paid is well satisfied.

Life is 10 percent what you make it and 90 percent how you take it.

The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible.

Alcohol is barren. The words a man speaks in the night of drunkenness fade like the darkness itself at the coming of day.

Those that I fight I do not hate, those that I guard I do not love.

The heights charm us, but the steps do not with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.

While fools shun one set of faults they run into the opposite one.

The older we grow the greater becomes our wonder at how much ignorance one can contain without bursting one's clothes.

Imagination and Hope: the same thing?

We will need imagination, which is to say, we will need hope.

--John Eldredge, Sacred Romance, 157

Spam Wisdom II

Someone actually takes the time to put these together before hitting the "spam" button:

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

I see no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home.

A cynic is a man who looks at the world with a monocle in his mind's eye.

Forgiveness is the key to happiness.

It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.

Grief is light that is capable of counsel.

There's nothing colder than chemistry.

Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.

Giving opens the way for receiving.

A crank is someone with a new idea -- until it catches on.

Fear makes men believe the worst.

I've read the last page of the Bible. It's all going to turn out all right.

Without Elvis, none of us could have made it.

Interesting Quotes from Spam

Got these all in one email this afternoon:

Do everything as in the eye of another.

A marriage is no amusement but a solemn act, and generally a sad one.

I believe in grumbling it is the politest form of fighting known.

Some couples go over their budgets very carefully every month. Others just go over them.

Happiness in the present is only shattered by comparison with the past.

The proper study of mankind is woman.

Of all ills that one endures, hope is a cheap and universal cure.

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead.

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

Save a thief from the gallows and he will cut your throat.

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

Heaven

I had a conversation with one of my favorite mythic friends Saturday night. Bill's a truck driver. We were over at their house eating some awesome home made pizza.

After supper, Bill and I sat down with a cup of coffee and were talking about life, faith, struggles, hope--the basic stuff that all of humanity has been dealing with since the story of Job was written. Somehow we came around to talking about heaven and "what it's going to be like."

Be honest--the first image that comes to mind when I say "Heaven" is something like this:

Yeah, me too.

But for a couple years now I've been having some strange recoiling feelings from this kind of floaty, white, angelic, spirit, wings-and-harps image. Maybe not so much recoiling as much as, it just doesn't draw me in.

I think it's because there's no precedent for it here.

I'll make a suggestion that we're already getting some foretastes of what heaven will be like, but we aren't noticing. We're distracted by the clouds and the sound of harps when we close our eyes.

If we could erase the floaty vision from our mind's eye for a few months and start with a blank slate, I wonder what that picture above would look like?

Ok, this might be weird (but that's never stopped me from writing before). What if the way God made us somehow reflects what the "perfect state" would/will look like? What if our impulses and our habits and our emotions and our activities and our dreams and our fairy tales provide us with clues as to "what heaven will be like"?

What if life itself actually gives us glimpses of heaven from time to time? What if we can actually see or taste heaven once in a while?

I'm taken with wondering about the differences between Day One and today. The original garden was unfallen; there was open communion between God and his creation. There's something about the idea of a Garden that does grab me, unlike the picture above.

In the original Garden, let's just imagine that there were only three possibilities: good, better, and best.

Good might have been a state of pure potential. Moist, dark, rich soil--but you can't eat soil. It's good in itself, simply because there is such great potential. So, seeds are sewn, and hope springs up. Hope that one day soon, there will be great food to eat.

Better might have been watching the plant grow and the flowers blossom and the fruit begin to form and the rains falling to water the garden. And as things move along, there is greater and greater hope and anticipation of the harvest and then--

Best. Eating the fruit of the matured plant. The ultimate moment in the saga. The climax of the plant's life. Hope fulfilled. The cycle completed. One thing's purpose fulfilled in the service of another.

And in the original Garden, the soil would then revert to Good. And then it would begin again.

Good, better, best. Good, better, best. But not a static state of best.

There was planting and tending and waiting and harvesting and preparing and consuming--followed by planting and tending and...You get the idea.

This kind of thing is still happening. It's never stopped. There is potential all over the place.

Unfortunately, with the fall, another state was introduced, called Bad. Not only that, but things tend to slip now from better to merely good and even further to bad. And sometimes things stay bad and never get back to good.

Think of the essential human experiences. Among them are: heaviness, loneliness, forgetfulness, isolation, falling away. Just to name a few examples. They taint our experiences every day. They are the mud on the window, making it difficult to see clearly the seasons as they pass by.

I'll suggest that if we could live a week without them, then we would be amazed at the way things look.

What if heaven is a state kind of like we're in now, but with all the "bad" elements removed. What if the earth was again loaded with unfallen potential--and the cycle of Good, Better, Best was again placed in motion.

Where would we go with all that potential--walking side by side with each other and with the Creator and his Son, the King of the Universe. Wondering, thinking, planning, building, living, reigning.

Without the heaviness, the sorrow, the forgetting.

Take a nice deep breath of this air...

Ahhhh. That's better.

Now let's say that as the centuries of Good - Better - Best pass by that we have stuff to get done, places to go, things to discover. That we set about building, developing, improving, making things generally go from Good to Better to Best. That the King of the Universe sits on a throne somewhere and we get to fellowship with each other in complete openness and intimacy. That we get to have communion with the King, directly.

Revelation 21:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

"Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

I think it was John Eldredge who said to notice the direction that the New Jerusalem takes--it's coming down. It comes here.

Coincidentally, Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God as coming as well. Over and over. It's remarkable. Remember what Jesus told us to pray?

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Maybe "Heaven on earth" is more than just a figure of speech.

Matthew 25:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Then the King will say to those on his right,

"Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world."

Reminds me of Minis Tirith from Lord of the Rings.

Heaven on earth...

Anyway, that's what we were talking about last Saturday night.

The whole evening--the pizza, the coffee, the fellowship, the conversation, the daydreaming--was a "foretaste of glory divine."

Anybody Wanna Start A Coffee Shop With Me?

So, I'm on a typical sales trip to Portland, Oregon. I booked a Quality Inn near the airport for my final night's stay, and stumbled onto this very interesting "kingdom business" model. Here's the link to the Quality Inn where I'm staying. Looks very typical, doesn't it?

Here's a link to the "church" that owns the hotel.

Here's a link to a Fox News story about the whole operation. Fascinating ministry. I like it. A lot.

Compare this to MJ's recent post called On 24 Hour Diners.

Teaspoon Slide Guitar

Here's your glimpse of Jesus for the day:
Teaspoon Slide Guitar Man. You're gonna love this.

Unfortunately, wherever Master leaves His mark, there are imposters: Neil and Barrah.

It helps to see the original first, doesn't it?

The Icons of My Faith (or, The Gospel in Pictures)

Each one of these pictures tells a story--testifies--about the creator of the world. They do it so much better than I can.

Life is a worship experience.

Row, Row, Row Our Boat

To say my fate is not tied to your fate is like saying "Your end of the boat is sinking."

--Hugh Downs

The Here and Now

There's a hymn called "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" that we used to sing when I was younger. I haven't sung it for years--this morning it was used in our worship service. The refrain goes like this:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.

There's another much more upbeat hymn that goes like this:

This world's not my home
I'm just passing through
My treasures and my hopes
Somewhere beyond the blue
Many friends and kindred
Have gone on before
And I can't feel at home
In this world anymore

Oh Lord you know
I have no friend like you
If heaven's not my home
Then Lord what will I do
The angels beckon me
To heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home
In this world anymore

Both of these songs convey the same message.

That this world isn't for us, that we don't belong here, that we should look beyond the present for what God is really preparing for us later. That life after death will be something else entirely.

Everything I write is somehow informed by my own background, and this sentiment was central to understanding this life for so long. I am just now working this out of my system, so what I'm saying may be very foreign to your own experience.

We were taught in so many ways that everything about this life was temporary and somehow bad--its pleasures, experiences, everything. That enjoyment itself and all the other positive feelings we are capable of were bad. That pleasure itself wasn't to be trusted.

I don't see a lot of justification for this. When I look around with the eyes of my heart, I don't see the things of earth becoming "strangely dim." I see the things of earth becoming strangely lovely.

Strangely intriguing. Striking. Inviting even.

Interestingly, in my faith tradition we rarely talked about the Kingdom. Unfortunately for us, because Jesus spent a lot of time talking about it.

For now, let me observe that we were made for this kind of life. As creatures of this universe, we're designed for a world of gravity, rain, moderate temperatures, alternating days and nights, and four seasons (unless you're from Texas, then you only get one).

This dirt, this grass, these trees, this oxygen. Don't you love it all? Don't you feel like getting out in it? Basking, soaking, absorbing? God made this whole thing, pretty much in the way we find it.

Most of the damage we see on the planet has come at the hands of man. The calamities being suffered in Sudan are nearly completely man-made. (What would physically happen on the earth if all peoples lived in peace for just twenty years? Just one generation.)

I'm not suggesting that this is utopia, or that it will be any time soon--I completely understand that we're dealing with this fallen-ness. There is sickness, and sorrow, and death, and separation, and heaviness of heart.

But there is also this residual longing for things to be the way they were, before the colossal fall. Before we chose to write our own rules, to try to control our own destiny, to strive to be something other than what we were created to be.

The heavens declare the glory of God,
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

(Psalm 19)

May we embrace the longings and the pleasures and the foretastes that God gives us in this life. May we learn from them, and may we follow them.

Here's a Psalm that sees God all through a thunderstorm:

Psalm 29

Ascribe to the LORD, O mighty ones, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.

The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.
The voice of the LORD is powerful.
The voice of the LORD is majestic.
The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, Sirion like a young wild ox.
The voice of the LORD strikes with flashes of lightning.
The voice of the LORD shakes the desert; the LORD shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
The voice of the LORD twists the oaks and strips the forests bare. And in his temple all cry, "Glory!"

The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;
the LORD is enthroned as King forever.
The LORD gives strength to his people;
the LORD blesses his people with peace.

May we see what this world teaches us about the very pleasures and glories of God. Let's look for the face of Jesus in all things.

On the Mind

A sonnet, by Charity Stratford

When confusion prevails upon the mind
In silent unspoken torture
It is in those times that I find
The meaning of life and the cloudy future.
Don't ask me what my mind will tell me
For the words it speaks have no language.
It is in these moments of revelation that I am free.
There is no other way to feel so languid.
If life could be written down
We would have nowhere to go from here.
We always need the explanation in a sound.
What's left to be found? Does our need to know stem from fear?
Perhaps we should blow our questions to the air
And let Why dwindle and let no answer be declared.

99 Pictures of Sudan

Sudan Album, January 2007

Here's a good sampling of what we experienced in Southern Sudan a couple weeks ago.

--Jon

The Restoration of All Things

I get a short reading in my email every day from Ransomed Heart Ministries. Today's was worth quoting here:

Look at the life of Jesus. Notice what he did. When Jesus touched the blind, they could see; all the beauty of the world opened before them. When he touched the deaf, they were able to hear; for the first time in their lives they heard laughter and music and their children’s voices. He touched the lame, and they jumped to their feet and began to dance. And he called the dead back to life and gave them to their families.

Do you see? Wherever humanity was broken, Jesus restored it. He is giving us an illustration here, and there, and there again. The coming of the kingdom of God restores the world he made.

God has been whispering this secret to us through creation itself, every year, at springtime, ever since we left the Garden. Sure, winter has its certain set of joys. The wonder of snowfall at midnight, the rush of a sled down a hill, the magic of the holidays. But if winter ever came for good and never left, we would be desolate. Every tree leafless, every flower gone, the grasses on the hillsides dry and brittle. The world forever cold, silent, bleak.

After months and months of winter, I long for the return of summer. Sunshine, warmth, color, and the long days of adventure together. The garden blossoms in all its beauty. The meadows soft and green. Vacation. Holiday. Isn’t this what we most deeply long for? To leave the winter of the world behind, what Shakespeare called “the winter of our discontent,” and find ourselves suddenly in the open meadows of summer?

If we listen, we will discover something of tremendous joy and wonder. The restoration of the world played out before us each spring and summer is precisely what God is promising us about our lives. Every miracle Jesus ever did was pointing to this Restoration, the day he makes all things new.

--John Eldredge, Epic

To lose the hope of restoration is to lose everything.

The Things You Love

I love watching a herd of horses grazing in an open pasture, or running free across the wide, sage-covered plateaus in Montana. I love hiking in the high country when the wildflowers are blooming—the purple lupine and the Indian paintbrush when it’s turning magenta. I love thunder clouds, massive ones. My family loves to sit outside on summer nights and watch the lightning, hear the thunder as a storm rolls in across Colorado. I love water, too—the ocean, streams, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, rain. I love jumping off high rocks into lakes with my boys. I love old barns, windmills, the West. I love vineyards...I love my boys. I love God.

Everything you love is what makes a life worth living. Take a moment, set down the book, and make a list of all the things you love. Don’t edit yourself; don’t worry about prioritizing or anything of that sort. Simply think of all the things you love. Whether it’s the people in your life or the things that bring you joy or the places that are dear to you or your God, you could not love them if you did not have a heart. Loving requires a heart alive and awake and free. A life filled with loving is a life most like the one that God lives, which is life as it was meant to be (Eph. 5:1–2).

John Eldredge, Waking the Dead

"...We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. In the past, he let all nations go their own way. Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy."

Paul to the Gentiles at Lystra, Acts 14

"Emergent" Breezes

"Emergent" and "emergent church" have become popular terms to describe the wind blowing today from the East. Here's a decent overview of it, from Wikipedia.

While I won't call myself an Emergent (any more than I would call myself a Christian) and I don't worship with an emergent congregation, I will say I find many things to identify with in the emergent "conversation." Rob Bell (one of the ministers at Mars Hill in Michigan) is one of my favorites, although he keeps his distance from the word "emergent."

Here are a few snippets from this article that I particularly identify with:

Missional Living
...Being missional within the emergent church framework can be defined as having the knowledge that one is living in the Kingdom of God right now and that there is a strong desire for others to share in that temporal blessing.

The Church
...the idea of "being a local community of people on a journey" and not "a corporate church."

Narrative theology
Narrative presentations of faith and the Bible are emphasized over exegetical Bible study and propositional presentations such as systematic theology which are viewed as reductionism. [Also from Wikipedia: Reductionism is a theory that asserts that the nature of complex things is reduced to the nature of sums of simpler or more fundamental things. This can be said of objects, phenomena, explanations, theories, and meanings. THIS is at the very heart of my new outlook on life and the Way of Jesus.]

Christ-centered life
A commitment to emulating Jesus' way of living: in particular, his love of God, neighbors and those normally considered enemies. It has an understanding of the gospel centered on Christ, a message about the Kingdom of God being reconciliation between God, humans and creation. This is opposed to the more traditional approach of Christians who sought to ready others for eternity.

Authenticity
Favouring the sharing of experiences and interactions that are personal and sincere such as testimonies over scripted interactions such as propositional, formulaic evangelistic tracts and teaching.

Mars Hill Church Revision

Mars Hill Church in Michigan has revised their "core beliefs" statement. I suggest this should be read out loud with some dramatic movie score music playing in the background:

Mars Hill is devoted to joining the God of the oppressed in the restoration of all creation.

We believe the Bible to be the voices of many who have come before us, inspired by God to continue to speak to us today. God calls us to immerse ourselves in this authoritative narrative and to continue to faithfully live out that story today as we are led by the Spirit.

God, the author of all things good, created humans in his image to live in fellowship with him, others, our inner self, and creation. God is in a communal relationship with himself and his creation and he created us to be relational as well. Sin entered the world and our relationships with God, others, ourselves, and creation were broken and distorted.

We believe that God did not abandon his creation to destruction and decay, rather he promised to restore this broken world. God chose a people to represent Him in the world. This people started with Abraham and his descendants. God promised to make them into a mighty nation. In time they became enslaved in Egypt. They cried out to God because of their oppression and God heard their cry. He brought them out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. He brought them to Sinai where he gave them an identity as his treasured possession, a Kingdom of priests, a holy people. The story continues, revealing God's refusal to give up on his people through their frequent acts of unfaithfulness to him.

God brought his people into the Promised Land. They were blessed to be a blessing and called to put God on display to the nations. They made movement toward this missional calling, yet they disobeyed and allowed foreign gods into the land. In Israel's disobedience they became indifferent and in turn irrelevant to the purposes God had called them to. They were sent into exile, yet a remnant looks ahead with longing and hope to a new reign like David's where peace and justice would prevail.

We believe these longings found their fulfillment in Messiah Jesus, born of a virgin, mysteriously God in the flesh. Jesus came to preach good news to the poor, to bind up the broken hearted and set captives free. He lived a perfect life proclaiming the arrival of the Kingdom. He was rejected by many, crucified, buried, and rose again. His death and resurrection bring hope to all creation. Through Jesus we have been forgiven and God is reconciling us to himself, each other, ourselves, and creation. Jesus is the only mediator between God and humans. For all who accept his sacrifice he gives the Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth through a communal life of worship and a missional expression of our faith. The church is called to put the resurrected Christ who lives in and through us on display to a broken and hurting world.

We believe the day is coming when Jesus will return and reclaim this world, the earth's groaning will cease and God will dwell with us on a new and restored creation.

Community to Survive

I spent the last week in Southern Sudan on a survey trip, seeing if it would be a suitable place to set up a "kingdom development business".

This little boy was one of several hundred people who came to see our plane come down out of the sky over the village of Lobone, Southern Sudan. The only planes they see in this village come from Catholic Relief Services, so they were all looking for supplies of some kind. All we did was ask a few questions and take some pictures. I hope they weren't disappointed.

Southern Sudan is one of those beautiful and tragic places. So much promise, so much hardship. The ground is so fruitful, but the people have so little to eat. Especially in the larger towns. The land around Lobone is exceptionally fertile, so these people are not starving, but you can tell by the bulging bellies of the children that they do need more protein.

Regardless of their food issues, I'll say this--Africans have not forgotten what community is. This is something we need to learn from them.

They cannot survive without each other. They enjoy one another.

I don't think I've ever lived a day without every need being met, with little or no thought on my part. But in Africa, it is community that sustains them. Most do not have jobs, so they have to take care of one another.

With our isolated family units, individuality, and mobility, we have lost something that we were meant to enjoy--deep fellowship with our extended families and communities.

Just Wondering

I wonder if believing that your life is a story is what makes it into one.

I wonder if wondering is the same as faith.

I wonder if our wondering feels like an invitation to God.

[When you use the word wonder that many times, it starts to sound a little weird. I wonder why that is?]

The Inadequacy of Relationship

One thing is "like" another.

actually: foreshadow? to image? Speaks of? parable? imbued? infusion?

Visible attributes over essence.
Measurable qualities over invisible identity.
Description over understanding.
Knowledge over knowing.
Goal: control-------goal: consume.

One thing "outside" of another.

Can we train ourselves to live and see this way?
Can we ask the right questions?
Can our eyes be opened to a new paradigm?

To relate = to oppose
To know = to consume.