Pre-Blessed Food!

this video so totally matches up with a wicked cool story from today at supper. So my second youngest son stayed home from school today. He was supposed to go with someone for “Take your kid to work day” but he couldn’t go with Char to do catheters and pik lines and no other arrangements could'/were made so…

Char said, “Fine, you are going to stay home and find out what its like to be a house wife.” She lined up a bunch of chores for him to do around the house and i threw in a few as well. Bam he worked pretty much all day. I did take him to Dairy Queen for lunch (like I always did with Char every day when she was house bound as a house wife :))

Guess who made supper? – you guessed it! Now we are a family who still prays before we eat our meal. We tend to not use the memorized prayers but the content and format usually do not vary much. So tonight my youngest prays and as he says “…and bless the hand that have prepared this…” our grade nine ‘house wife’ throws up his hands like a football referee indicating a touchdown. He grins as I look over at him with a pretty blanked out look…

“That was me!” he says, “That was me!” He made the food – he got the credit and his hands got blessed in the process. What happened there in that moment is profound. Think of all the ways that scene comments on gender roles and the relegation of certain tasks into obscurity… Think of what that scene potentially says about for whom prayer is meaningful and how prayer operates either to create a certain kind of distance or to actually acknowledge engagement. Here is what I mean. There is a whole lot of work that has gone into getting the food we ate for supper onto the table. My sons work might actually be the least demanding. The table prayer is intended to reflect gratitude for this labour from which the rest of the family is benefitting. But is it possible that the prayer might actually be making the labour of getting the food onto the table disappear since it ultimately gives God credit for stuff that human beings spent a lot of effort producing. Don’t get me wrong – it not as if I don’t recognize that God ultimately is the source behind the food we get to eat. In a way (and i know this may not be popular to say) praying this prayer of blessing sort of allows to stop accounting for the guilt of not having worked very hard to make this food a reality. This video throws that door wide open. It seems to say look everything is already pre-packaged and pre-prepared but in order to allow yourself that unadulterated access to this food without having to even acknowledge the ‘ultimate’ divine source makes the alienation with the food complete. Now it is possible for food to exist without source – like it just appears on the Grocery Store shelves by magic – like manna appearing on the desert floor. The ludicrous nature of that idea should be apparent. I mean even the militant atheist would have to acknowledge that it takes a far weirder and outlandish faith to believe that stuff just appears on grocery store shelves than it does to believe that God is the source of all food.

In the end the disservice (the thing that does not get blessed) may lie in the fact that we are not really engaged in the production of our food.

So bless the farmer and the butcher and the meat wrapper and stock boy and the cart picker-upper dude in the parking lot. God bless the stove maker and the assembly line designer and the tortilla maker and the fertilizer distributer and the farmer who is wandering towards Christmas this year without so much as sniff of a profit line to show for all the rain and hope he has poured into the fields he tends. And God bless my son.

a special thank-you to the anonymous contributor who brought this video to my attention – storing up riches in…

Premonition

I really don't know what to make of this. Here's the story…

Last week I went up to camp evergreen to talk to kids from the front of the building. Anyways, I was up late Tuesday night with several of the staff discussing issues around the evolution/materialist debate. It was a good conversation with people who, to my surprise, had intelligent thoughtful questions and perspectives on topic. After being chased to bed for being too loud I promptly drained my bladder and crawled into the wonderfully hard double bed the camp provides for its speakers. I wiggled my ear buds down into the aural canal and proceeded to release my body in preparation for sleep. At that moment, a random thought entered my brain. "What if there was a fire?" I thought, "Do I know the escape route from my room on the second floor or this deteriorating lodge?" What was weird was that after reassuring myself that I could quite easily slip out my wind and down the roof to the ground, the thought about fire kept pricking my increasingly deteriorating consciousness. "What if there was a fire at home I thought?" Yikes – that perked me up! After thinking about what might cause a fire in my house and coming up blank I did something completely out of the ordinary. I prayed, "Please God protect my family from fire."

The entire next day brought no reminders of my late night inferno considerations. Even my post supper conversation with my wife did not spark any recollection of the 'fire' prayer from the night before.

It wasn't until the next day, in a conversation with my second oldest son that it came back.

"Dad, we had a fire in our dishwasher."

"What?"

"Yeah, on Tuesday night mom put the dishwasher on before she went to bed around ten. In the morning when I woke up I smelled smoke and told mom about it when we got home."

"That is really weird Jesse cause on Tuesday night (and it would have been close to the end of the dishwashing cycle) I prayed that God would keep you safe from fire."

"Wow Dad God's a pretty good firefighter eh?"

I'm a pretty sceptical person who does not put much stock in what seems like circumstantial occurrences like these. But I can't avoid the way this particular event haunts me. There you go!

Dubious Honour of…

…being the inspiration for another line of "Jesus Junk". Apparently, the words I wrote here gave impetus to the people over at EMPTYTOMBGEAR to start this line of merchandize. Check it out. (I kinda like the skull cap shown here)

my favorite chapter

ht: Paul

from: Wordle

New Web Site to check out - BIG THINK

For those of you interested in this - I've posted this video to some of Steven Pinkers thoughts. This type of thought was pretty common in my philosophy class last semester and I think it is worth contending with (that's different than endorsing - ok). It's a more condensed version of some of the stuff that Ryan posted on here
here is the link http://www.bigthink.com/faith-beliefs/1132

Persecution Ulcers

The persecuted church is often represented as a type of ideal. When we speak of the persecuted church we admire their commitment (often in the face of death) to hold to convictions. We envy its ability to reproduce and attract adherents – something that seems to elude even our most sophisticated church growth gurus. And that (its proliferation) in the face of incredible obstacles and restrictions. We have been taught to revere the persecuted church as a good model for the commitment that it takes to really live out the convictions we have about our faith. Our Anabaptist history in fact has made heroes of martyrs like Conrad Grebel and Hans Denk (I always got a kick out of the Freudian echoes in that name).

I will confess that I have always held a small amount of doubt about how strongly I should revere the persecuted. Honouring their commitment to the faith is one thing but elevating them to the status of exemplary gives me pause. That pause comes at the point of wondering about the actual convictions that persecuted and martyred people are holding to. I wonder if we assume that those convictions are accurate and theologically sound. The logic seems to follow that by nature of being persecuted the 'faith' that these people hold to must be more pure because we assume that something worth dying for must be accurate. And we also assume that when persecution comes, superficial and extraneous doctrines and issues quickly fall away to the more central and pertinent issues of theology. I have heard no less from many preachers and teachers.

Consider for a moment the effects that stress (and persecution would certainly qualify) has on the human body. The body functions most effectively under the just the right amount of stress. Too much stress or too little stress leads to pathology (dysfunction). It is true that certain aspects of the body are more active when the body is highly stressed but these same aspects can lead to major problems especially over an extended period of time. In fact one of the common effects of heightened stress is the tendency for the person or animal to give up (this helps to explain stress related depression). So then the question must be asked, "Does the stress of persecution make the individuals more likely to give up in the face of ongoing stress or are things like imprisonment and martyrdom actually an act of resolute determination?" Not only that, what can we say about the convictions themselves? We know that a brain that is under perpetual stress increasingly loses its capacity to reason and make accurate judgements of the stimuli present. This is how, for instance, it is possible for paramedics and police officers to remain on the job while repeatedly facing large amounts of stress. They actually become numb to it. So then we ask, "Can the convictions (the theological tenets) of people under stress be accurate?" Now to be sure, this is hardly an issue of controversy – nobody is jumping up and down protesting theological perspectives of persecuted people very much these days.

One of the reasons the early church (Acts) is revered is because it seems to put faith into its simplest forms and to be sure the pressure and stress that it faced was the forging fire of most of our expanded theological system. In fact it is not uncommon to have Jesus death on the cross characterized as an act of martyrdom which is not entirely accurate. Jesus death in fact was more like a premeditated suicide if understood properly – one that was required for the redemption of sin – not an act of superior moral conviction in the face of extreme opposition.

Now I have to admit that even asking questions about the persecuted church makes me uncomfortable largely I think due to how strongly they have been idealized in my mind. Once again I am likely off my rocker so feel free to pick away…

interesting cartoons

Gil and Ryan could find use for in class I am sure...

here's something to chew on...

Emile Durkheim decides to figure out if you can apply sociological factors to suicide. This was a revolutionary approach in his day. Of course today we understand that suicide is affect by many various factors in society but essential suicide is still considered an essentially private act of an individual often acting in isolation. Durkheim confronted the notion that suicide was essentially a psychological disfuntion in the individual. He figured that if that notion was correct he should find that people with psychological problems should be the group of people where suicide occured most often. The data simply could not support that assumption instead the data revealed that the groups of people where suicide was most prevalent were: unmarried people, Protestants (as opposed to Catholics), and men.
Based on his findings he concluded that the social factor that most affected suicide was social solidarity - the connectedness of the people with a social group.
Not sure if you noticed it but Protestants were in that top three. Durkheim said the difference between Catholics and Protestants was how the nature of their faith expression played out in communal connectivity. Catholics he suggested were more communal and their ritualistic approaches to religion kept a social contract in place. Protestants whose faith focus was on the individuals connection to God (you know personal saviour and all that), didn't seem to achieve the same social contract within thier religious expression.
I think makes for some very interesting questions for practical theology in the area of soteriology and an understanding of the nature of the church.

Just do it...

some thoughts from Gil's summer ramblings
"For a while I thought that maybe I was missing something. Maybe God did things for and said things to other people in more direct ways. Maybe there was some defect in my practice of the Christian faith that accounted for this gap, some lack of faith or fundamental misunderstanding of how the whole thing was supposed to work. But gradually it became obvious that we were all in the same boat, interpreting (for the most part) ambiguous events and circumstances in light of our faith that God was, in fact, active and present within them."
What is interesting about this is that the degree to which we seem to attribute circumstances to God's action is directly proportional to our need to both absolve our own (human) responsibility for the action and our need to favorably reinforce our belief in God. Pretty self serving - I guess. It may be that the distorted view of God that we and others have may stem from this flaw...

suffering: reprise

understanding suffering
why is there suffering - That's what we want to know right?
suffering is not just a few bad things happening to us - even if they pile up in a row.
suffering is a deep hole of pain or difficulty that seems to have no exit strategy. Really I have not suffered much at all in my life. And I don't even have to compare my life to anyone else to deduce that. Recently God has put a few people into my path who have or are suffering.
And I have been challenged to consider how I view suffering.
My starting point is with some of the thoughts that I put down in this article about sacrifice. From there let me expand a little...
I think suffering is a vehicle for beauty. We tend to consider suffering as horrible and hideous - unbearable. So why are people in the misery of Africa smiling? How can the person dying of cancer find the resources to encourage other people? Are they simply so much more ignorant of how good life could be that they find pleasure in the simplest of improvements over their former condition? In part perhaps. But I wonder if they are not living in an understanding of beauty in suffering. They see a way to transcend the horror of their lives and choose to redeem their plight with deep acts of kindness and compassion. I doubt they live with an overinflated idea of hope - I think they see life for what it is and understand that comfort is far less desirable than love.
When people suffer toward beauty they need not compromise on justice or truth. In fact, the power of courage to live redemptively inside our suffering may well be the catalyst to true justice - not just a self=vindication that we so often pursue.
And I am not suggesting that we deny the passions and gifts that God has placed in our lives. That we should, in effect, chase after suffering as a holier state of spiritual condition.
I think we all can recognize places in our lives where we have or are suffering even if we admit that we don't suffer like some do. Suffering is not optional. It may be within our power to prevent strokes, cancer, job loss, death, depression, poverty, or addiction. But in suffering there are always things that are out of our control - inevitabilities that can sucker punch our best intentions.
Learning to suffer toward beauty takes a supernatural determination. I am grateful for the places where I have gotten to see that modeled for me in the last few weeks and months.
Here's an update: just check Ryan's blog and discovered his excellent thoughts on the same topic...

Some quotes and thoughts

On Scandrette’s Soul Graphitti which I am just getting around to completing beside the pool this week.
“As I think about it now, there is more than a little irony in the fact that we sat passively in a regal sanctuary listening to messages based on the adventures of a homeless bearded prophet who wondered the cities and countryside caring for the poor and healing the sick and inviting people to follow his example.”
Next he compares a sentimental approach to faith and cynical one:
Sentimental ‘folk’ religion: Jesus often functions as a ghost or lucky charm.
“In some Christian traditions, children are hurried along to embrace Jesus as personal saviour without the space for genuine curiosity... People raised in such practices are often robbed of a genuine inquisitiveness about Jesus-because they know too much too soon.”
A cynical approach to religion: Jesus is the “warmongering Christmas tree icon of America, a fairytale god only believed in by the simple, uneducated, or politically conservative.”
“Although they prided themselves on being open minded, my classmates were nevertheless blinded by the intolerance of inbred cynicism.”
Lots to chew on here: hurrying kids in ‘personal salvation’ and out of a genuine wonder is something I see us still doing in some ways (even with programs like VBS – gulp!).
Default cynicism can be equally as preventive in discovering the real essence of the Gospel.

Do some Christians want to be hated?

Dan Kimball over here lays out some very good smack on this 'they will hate us" rhetoric.
I think sometimes it seems that for some Christians it is important to make faith so:
- -confusing
- -obnoxiously confrontive
- -idiotically simplistic
- -naively promising
- -methodically 'step by step' dull
- -hypocritcally judgemental
- -religiously conformist
that people can't help but HATE it all.
And instead of becoming (or refining into) something distinct and true. We have become repulsive and stained the beauty of the gospel...

the black button

This video makes me think about how we use cognitive decision making in religious endeavors (I mean: making the mental decision the most important part of our faith).

The reality is that we are rarely faced with momentous decisions like the variety that this video suggests.
The 'snap' theory (the idea that people just one day snap and do terrible horrible things) is not supported at all in any field of study.
People make big - life changing - decisions all the time but they are rarely if ever made 'right-out-of-the-blue'. Whether it's deciding to get married, buy a car, change jobs, or lose weight - all these decisions are made with a truck load of background support. It's the same way with sin. We are never faced with these monumental temptations that overwhelm us into commiting these horrible things.
What is interesting is how we pressure (maybe this is especially in the past) people into deciding to follow Christ (accept the plan of salvation). If we realize that a momentous decision requires so much support in order to make. How can we actually think that a one time response at an alter call or other similar occasion is really meaningful in the grand scheme of things?
I think that changes how we approach these 'talks' or sermons. I think we need to remember to challenge people to consider the opportunity to make a decision but be careful not to make it so trite that we think an entire life can be magically reversed with one simple prayer or raising of a hand...

Wow God's got a lot to live down...

You know this might just be off putting for you. Maybe for some of you this poem might be an afront to you. Challenge your spiritual logarithms and you intellectual suppositions about who God is. And you feel compelled to respond, refute, recoil, revolt against this rant but...

It's not like this view of God is unique. There are parts of these pictures that are refected commonly by many people. There are parts of these ideas about God that I can even recognize as a part of how I think/thought about God. And to tell you the truth its more than a little embarrassing. I sorta have a feeling that until we accept that the world has a pretty messed up image of who God is - we'll just keep right on arguing with them that they are wrong. And how can they really be wrong. I mean don't we need to pretty much take responsibility for the picture of God that people see from those who say they know Him best?

starting line or new eyes

The day before yesterday I read a devotional thingy (sorta like a daily bread for kids) to my boys before heading off to school. It was based on John 3:1-7, 16. The point of this reading stressed that what this passage was emphasizing was a cognitive decision to accept Christ in the act we have come to know as being born again. It suggested that no one would receive eternal life if they weren’t born again by accepting Jesus as their saviour. I squirmed through it cause something about they way they presented it made me uncomfortable. So I went back to the passage to look for clues as to why I was feeling the way I was. I think we have probably misinterpreted the point of chapter 3 in John.
Read it here or here.
Nicodemus approaches Jesus with an affirmation of who He is – likely an attempt to sorta butter him up to answer the burning question that was on his mind. But we never get a good clue if Nic got to ask Jesus the real question on his mind because Jesus sorta cuts him off.
You see what Nic has just done in v.1, 2 is describe how he has been convinced that Jesus is God. That’s revelation.
And Jesus wants to set him straight it seems – not about who he is but about how Nic looks at reality. Nic figures Jesus is legit because he does all these fantastic signs and wonders but Jesus blindsides him with a paradigm shift. What Jesus challenges Nic on is not on whether he has come to the right conclusion but on what Nic has actually seen (v.3, 8, and especially 12). When Jesus suggests that people must be born again, he seems to actually be talking about gaining a transformed spiritual perspective on reality – NOT – a new decision about what is what. And he says if you want to know how it happens exactly – well you can’t it’s a mystery – a hidden thing just like natural conception happens in a hidden mysterious way.
We have taken this passage to mean that just like being born naturally is the start of a human life so deciding to follow Jesus is the start of eternal life/salvation. I’m not sure we are right in interpreting this passage that way.
It often feels like we superimpose our ideas of in/out onto so much of what Jesus said. Now read me carefully here. I think making life altering decisions is a natural human tendency. But following through on those decisions is what is life altering. Think of Christopher Columbus as an example of this…
It is pretty obvious that he made a cognitive decision. This decision was based on a belief of how to reach the Indies which was based on his faith that the world was round (not a very commonly held belief at the time). Yet all of this would have been for naught unless he had acted on his faith and put his cognitive decision into action. It was the working out of his faith that led him to discover the Americas. His decision was the starting point but actually almost insignificant if he had not acted on it.
In many evangelical circles so much emphasis has been put on the cognitive decision to follow Christ that we have turned it into the standard by which we judge whether some has or does have salvation.
We use passages like the one here in John 3 as proof that we should go this way.
What Jesus seems to be suggesting here is a lot different than trying to define the starting point of salvation. I think he is trying to help Nic (and by extension all of us) to understand that we need a new perspective on reality in order to understand God. If I can summarize Jesus is saying:
“Look for God with new spiritual eyes. Ones that don’t look for proof in the obvious places that humans tend to gravitate to. Instead realize that this spiritual reality is something that is accomplished by the Spirit and it transforms you into a whole new way of living. You might think my credentials are in the miracle – but really my cred comes from the sacrifice which you will witness (v.16)”
Personally, I don’t think this really changes the reality of humans making decisions about who they are going to follow but really for me it changes what I have understood is the starting point of faith – namely following. So there you go…

Let me ask you a question...

Can you recognize truth wherever you find it?
Is it hard for you to see truth because you've forgotten the source of truth?
Is this truth?

Does this video clip speak truth?
The idea that we should take the focus off of ourselves and focus on the needs of others is a solid Biblical teaching. You can find that taught in many places through out the Scriptures but...
...this video is made by a Buddhist.
What do you think about it now?
Is it still truth in your mind?
What does this works authorship do to your analysis of the content? Do you tend to reject it? Or criticize it? Are you indifferent? Could you careless about what kind of person created this piece?
Should you care?
There would be those who would suggest that this video is actually Satan disguising himself as a n 'angel of light' in order to suck unwitting people into Buddhism. Could this actually be so? And if it is must we not then also discount the message of the video as false? And if we do that - how does that affect our understanding of Scripture's teaching?
There would also be those who might use this precise peice of work to prove that Buddhism is not unlike Christianity and that in fact every religion is essentially the same in purpose. Could this actually be so? Why is it possible to erase clear and important distinctives between two faith perspectives in a single stroke?
And of our reaction to this?
Well for me - my reaction goes like this.
First I was drawn to confession - "He who does not love is brother does not love God"
Second I was reminded of the faces of inner city Calgary that I visited several weeks ago with our senior high group. I was moved to prayer and reminded of my commitment to serve them.
Third there was a tiny seed of embarrassment/jealousy that a Christian organization or author had but this same video together. I wish it would have been us. I'm not sure if this embarrassment is the right way to feel but...

ht: reflections

A Parable about Misunderstandings

A friend of mine gave me permission to reprint this story. The story illustrates well how critical it is for us to be fearless in our pursuit of truth. It also reminds us not to carelessly react when alarming appearances present themselves.

A SATURDAY MORNING FIRE ALARM
Back in the early fifties life in North Kildonan was pretty much laid back. In summer us kids hoed the family garden, skinned our knees on dusty gravel roads while biking, and watched the big guys play baseball at the KSA (Kildonan Sports Association) ball field. Oh yes, there was also a two hundred-some odd acre wood lot that had a kind of Narnian appeal to us kids. The Klassens grew watermelon in clearings within the woods and woe any one that would dare steal even one melon.
Not much changed in winter, oh sure, we learned how to hang on car bumpers and slide on our moccasins to the corner store, unless some evil intentioned neighbor threw out the ashes the night before. Ouch! and a pair of wrecked moccasins. After school and on weekends we spent our time at KSA’s outdoor rink. Life was simple.
North Kildonan was a north east suburb of Winnipeg. In the forties and fifties it was virtually a Mennonite reservation. Groceries were bought at Nick Dick’s grocery, your dad worked at either DeFehr Furniture ( Palliser ) or Klassen Iron Works. We didn’t need gas because the street car rail head was a short mile away. And there were two large Mennonite congregations, socially and religiously dividing us all very nicely.
It was hard to get into trouble in this kind of controlled environment, after all Grandma usually lived just down the road, Aunty lived on the next block, and every house had at least one window were the drapes were split just enough that inquisitive eyes could see your every move. Yet somehow kids were blamed for a lot of mischief. Mostly innocent stuff, knock-out-ginger, peering up through gaps in the wooden sidewalks as unsuspecting females would travel the walks spanning the little gullies here and there, and of course the older fellows never failed to move at least one outhouse every Halloween. This last bit of mischief was much talked about the week following the celebration of fall’s arrival. In great detail the victim’s late evening visit to the toilet was told, retold, embellished, and retold again.
It was one cold crisp winter morning that one of the neighborhood lads found his heroic efforts seemingly reduced to naughty mischief, and even infamy. Our young friend was anxious to be first at the rink that Saturday morning, not hard for him; since his home was just a block from KSA’s rink. Smoke was already drifting up from the club house chimney; at least he would be able to put on his skates in the warm shack which served as the club house. It was the fellows at Klassen’s Iron Works; located just across the street that would get the wood stove going in the mornings. It was a good arrangement, much appreciated by the North Kildonan youngsters. Yes, he would be the first to lace up his skates that morning but just before entering the shack he glanced up the street one more time, it was that momentary pause that changed the day; and perhaps much more, for the youngster.
Rushing in the rink’s direction was ‘aunt’ Agatha Klassen. Every youth in North Kildonan adored Aunt Agatha, a soft spoken lady that never forgot your birthday. Every Sunday School student would receive a birthday card from this gentle saintly spinster. The skates were quickly dropped and our youth ran to meet Aunt Agatha who was obviously in great distress. As the boy neared aunt Agatha he heard her crying out, "fire!, fire!" There down the street a few houses past his own, at his Grandma’s home, he saw to his horror large black billowing smoke. Aunt Agatha quickly instructed the lad to rush over to Klassen’s Iron Works and report the fire, she was in a hurry to catch Saturday morning’s downtown streetcar.
It was the right thing to do, report a fire to either DeFehr Furniture or Klassen’s Iron Works, these businesses provided the volunteer firemen. Frantically the lad ran to Klassen’s where he called in the fire alarm, employees quickly called for the fire truck and prepared to roll out the fire hose. Help was on the way, the process had begun. Catching his breath the young fellow raced back to the rink picked up his skates and rushed off for home where he dropped off his skates and continued on to Grandma’s place imagining the worst. Only three houses over, it didn’t take long to get to Grandma’s; smoke ,now more grey, was still rising from the property but there was a sinister silence about the place. Slowly suspicion compounded his fears. Perhaps, a false alarm?
Sure enough, hurriedly rounding the back of Grandma’s house the lad was the first to discover the enormity of his mistake. Cheerily, his two uncles, beside their huge fire heated caldron greeted him and invited him to help them make soap for Grandma. Visibly shaken and already hearing the fire truck coming down the street the young lad turned and fled for home passing the volunteer fire men unrolling the last of the quarter mile of hose.
Well by now you probably suspect that I know too much about this incident to be an innocent observer, I spent that entire day hidden in my room. Only in the evening did I dare talk to mom and dad about the mysterious fire alarm, and that, only because I knew the next morning I would be the person of considerable interest at church. The Klassens were close family friends but not ones to readily give up a good story. I was mortified at my colossal blunder. Really it was our blunder; Aunt Agatha Klassen and I had arrived at conclusions without verifying the facts. We certainly were anxious to do the right thing but we skipped some important steps in trying to achieve the desired goal.

I lose...

Here’s one of the things I’ve been wondering about…
You know after 15 + years of doing the same thing – your identity gets tied into that very thing you’ve been doing. Especially, if like me, you’re a pragmatist. By that I mean that when people yammer on about “being” versus “doing” you really don’t understand what they are talking about. And it’s not like you aren’t a thinker – that is that thoughts travel through your consciousness – it’s that thinking and ‘being’ is so interwoven with doing that you are not quite sure where one begins and the other ends. And I am perfectly aware that I am much more than just a collection of events, tasks, and accomplishments. But it is that the focus of my life has really been about doing what I can do well. Well, most of the time. And so the real identity of a person – this person – cannot be differentiated from the tasks performed no matter how pathetically.
So what I am – is in no small way what I do. And get paid to do. There is a validation in that – getting paid. It’s like this, people say “You are a crazy guy that seems to connect well with youth – we’ll pay you to do it”. And if I say, “Okay.” – Its not that I have just said yes to hanging out with kids – I have earned the whole ‘crazy’ identity as well. And it’s not like its entrapment – no far from it. It has been and will always be a clean clear freedom that I have lived these last 15 years. But here it is: I am a youth pastor – that is as much who I am as what I do. It is as much who I want/wanted to be as what I feel responsible for as my duty in this world.
My spiritual journey is tied intrinsically to all of this. I would not be who I am in every aspect if it were not for my position. And this is how it should be I believe. I am not sure how it is possible to compartmentalize your life so much that you could have a spiritual journey that was somehow detached or unfamiliar to your vocation. It borders on schizophrenia to suggest this.
One of the blessings of the last four years of my life has been the intensifying of my spiritual journey. I feel like I know God better and because of that I am amazed at His mysterious grandeur. I feel my life has fallen more in step with the natural rhythms of God’s design for humans. And I am more convinced than ever that His grace is unparalleled beauty. But…
I wonder how my spiritual journey will change as my vocation changes. I wonder how I will live and think differently when my spiritual journey no longer hangs on some of the familiar rhythms of ministry. I wonder what unfamiliar territory I will walk though before I recognize the creator in it. I wonder how I will be reminded of the power of redemption when I cease to see it through the changed lives of young people struggling through unimagined pain and hurt. What will I lose? What will I gain in this new venture? It’s hard to say.
It is becoming clear though that as I say goodbye to youth ministry (for now) I also say goodbye to a way of knowing God. Quite frankly that scares me and excites me all at once.

Ghandi seems to be rubbing off...

Ghandi was quoted as saying: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ." Seems like more than just Ghandi feels that way...
I guess the real question is just how appealing should Jesus Christ be. There is definately a sense that in some ways Jesus can be both repulsive and attractive - maybe even at the same time. If nothing else this type of reflection must cause us to consider whether the image of Jesus that we are displaying is accurate.
ht: Dan Kimball

Soul Graffiti

by: Mark Scandrette

Quotes:
“Today there is tremendous pressure on spiritual leaders to be spectacular and to “market” faith in ways that are simple, easy and easily consumable. Too often the promise of “the life you’ve always wanted” is actually the life no one is living.”

“We have all found ways to misuse the good gifts of creation to cope with anxiety and stress: anger, working, drinking, consuming, eating, indulging in elicit escapes, and perhaps as many other things as there are people. Sometimes what promised relief become the habits that form us in ways that hurt our bodies, our souls, our relationships, and the Earth itself. In one way or another we are all reaching out to find a new rhythm of life that is healthy, generative, and sustaining. Discovering that transforming rhythm is the essence of the good news.”

“We are more likely to trust messages that are inhabited…”

After more than 15 years in youth ministry, I am keenly aware of my short-comings, weaknesses, and failures. There are things I would change – but I really bear no guilt for my failings. They are I suppose part of the fabric of that God has chosen to weave. I am embarrassed at times – but mostly at peace. There is one thing that I bear guilt and shame over an above all else. It is the places where I have served to communicate, endorse, espouse, and defend the hollow, shallow, glossy, in authentic ‘faith’ that still parades itself in and out of our churches like a filthy whore. Glib answers, trite platitudes (I really didn’t believe or live), and contrived, slick ‘instructions’ have too often been a part of my ministry repertoire even if it only was once (which it wasn’t).
We (I) can get so good at spewing out and mimicking the latest greatest mantras or 4-step/4-week/4-results program, that we (I) forget to acknowledge the twinge of guilt each time one of these things roll of our (my) tongue.
Forgive me!
Would that I might inhabit the ‘essence of the good news’ more