Ancient Prayers

Our church has a tradition of writing Letters to Jesus on the first Sunday of January every year. I don't know how long we've been doing this, but it has been a long time. They are actually written prayers. We take time out during our gathering to be still and know and to set our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter...We do this to quiet our minds and out bodies and listen to the Lord. For first timers it can seem a bit forced, but eventually the idea sinks in. Writing out prayers is an ancient tradition. It is a spiritual discipline that forces us to slow down, shut out the noises, and be still before the Lord. Written prayers take personal discipline and practice. Many of us were taught that prayer was simply a conversation with Jesus, and while that is true, it is not the whole story. Doug Pagitt's book Body Prayer talks about using our whole body as the prayer, not just words. He was interviewed on the radio recently about this. When I was in seminary I took notes on my laptop. I almost never remembered what I wrote until I reviewed the notes. Then my laptop crashed and I was forced back into the analog world. I found that I was able to remember a greater amount of the notes that I took by hand without having to review them! There must be some sort of mechanism between our hands and out brains that makes this possible. I shared with with our congregation and many seemed to connect with it. As we start out this new year, perhaps this is a spiritual disciple worth living out!

Tag, You're It

I've been tagged by Billy Calderwood. I'll list out my five things in a bit, but I started thinking about this tag thing. I mean it does seem rather 7 Degrees oriented. I wonder how long it will take to come back around. Anyhow, it appears there has been a tagging war in my neighborhood between Burbank and Glendale gangs. Tagging is always about getting your name out there and claiming a certain space. The gang members are looking to expand their influence, likely over who gets to sell drugs in a certain area. It is a bit of a pissing contest. To this point it has not turned violent and hopefully never will. I wonder how many of us, in the workplace or in the church, enter into some form of turf war/pissing contest in order to feel like we are in control of something. It is difficult when Jesus talks about how the first will be last and all of that. When ever I've been to a pastors' conference the opening line seems to be "So, how big is your church? What kinds of great programs do you have?" I usually avoid this like the plague, but I am not always successful. If Jesus was really telling the truth about he economics of the Kingdom, then what do we do with all of the bravado and false competition?

OK, here are my five things (I am sure that the above meanderings revealed a few things too)
1) My favorite movie is War Games (I know some of the original phreaks of the 70's and 80s)
2) I was arrested in Jr. High for shooting squirrels with my BB gun.
3) I'm turning 40 this year and have only been out of the country twice: both times to New Zealand!
4) I never watched a pro basketball games from start to finish until after I was married. My wife is a jock and former PE teacher!

5) I really liked A Prayer for Owen Meaning, but hated Simon Birch.









I now tag:
Tim Harwick
David K
Carrie G

Have Fun Y'all

Fun at the Rose Parade

I had a great time with my family at the Rose Parade yesterday and captured a couple of vids of the Star Wars floats.




Here is the first one:



Here is the second one:

Emerging Church Documentary

I came across this today on youtube. Some interesting sound bites. It is a promo for a documentary on the emerging church. He interviews a number of the big hitters. It is always worth noting when documentaries start to appear...it often marks the beginning of the end. Hopefully not in this case.

Missional Preaching

Jason Clark had a post 5 Tips for Preaching & Teaching in The Emerging Church. His 5th point was

5. Be Sacramental: Lead people into interaction, conversation, participation, and connection to God, each other, and the world, not just your own ideas.

What caught my eye was the idea of being sacramental. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches were formed in primarily illiterate cultures. This affect the creation of liturgy in that most of the people did not have the ability or luxury to read or study the scriptures. This, in part, led to the standardizing of the liturgies. The protestant churches in America reacted against this seeing it as a way in which the church and state sought to control the populus. It was easy to throw out the baby with the bathwater in that context because the people were more literate and certainly knew the scriptures.
I wonder if in our missional contexts that there again a need for such a liturgical/sacramental aspect of our churches. Since many of those coming to ec's have less and less of a knowledge of the bible and its content there is a greater need to provide divergent streams for people to encounter and understand the gospel. Liturgical/sacramental elements help to provide these multiple streams. For those who are more visual in their approach to the world, icons become encounters with the gospel. For those who are more kinesthetic elements of movement help them internalize the experience of worship. For the auditory the hearing of the word, singing of songs in worship, recitation of liturgy does the same.

Unintended Consequences

I wear many hats: assistant pastor, adjunct professor, property manager, husband, father, etc, etc, etc. I have a hard time multi-tasking. I do it well for a while, but then my life gets too busy and complicated and it all seems to fall apart. Eventually I am able to pick up the pieces and take care of my core priorities. One of the tools that I use to keep all of this in motion is my cell phone. I've been an early adopter in many kinds of technology, but the cell phone has been one that I put off for a long time. I am coming up on the end of my first 2-year contract. One thing that has become apparent to me is the way that the convenience of being able to call anyone, from anywhere, at any time has changed the nature of the way that I related with others, especially on the phone. I've gotten into the habit of having short quippy conversations with people on the phone. They tend to be very practical. After one recent call I realized that I had called a friend, pumped him for the information that I needed and then hung up! I felt horrible afterwards and have made a commitment to no longer use my phone in that manner, but rather to connect with others and build them up. Sure, I will always need my cell phone to get information, but if that becomes the primary function of my call, then who will want to answer when they see me on Caller ID?

Food and Friendship

Thanksgiving is coming! It's my favorite holiday of the year. Every year we have a gaggle of people come to our home for Thanksgiving dinner and then even more show up for dessert. There are few things that I enjoy more in life than having a house filled with friends and good food. There is something indescribable that happens when we sit around the table and share food. There is an ancient middle eastern tradition that when a person is invited to another's home for dinner the first thing that is served is sweets. (I must be middle eastern at heart because I always want dessert before dinner:-) The subtext to this action is that if we share in sweet food then we will share in sweet conversation. I like this idea. In the bible so much seems to happen around food. It almost begins and ends with it. YHWH's command to Adam and Eve was that they could eat of anything in the garden except the one tree. It was improper eating that lead to the fall. In God's ability to redeem all things he takes that which lead to the fall and redeemed it as that around which the inauguration of heaven revolves around: the marriage feast of the lamb.
In Jesus' time table fellowship had been corrupted, it was a place of dividing people by class. Whether it be the clean/unclean divide: the elite v. sinners or the various classes in Israel's society or the Jew/Gentile divide table fellowship became a place of division. Jesus' approach was not to do away with it or even speak against, but rather he redeemed it through how he practiced it. He ate with everyone, the high and the lowly. In doing such a simple thing he challenged a core aspect of Israel's society. In this simple act he embodied the Kingdom. For it was Jesus who said that the first shall be the last and that the one who wants to be the leader must be the servant of all.
The unfortunate truth today is that Thanksgiving can be a time where the weakness of families come to the fore. Families that are divided throughout the year due to unresolved conflicts come together on Thanksgiving and then the fireworks start to fly. Instead of being a time of unifying families, Thanksgiving can be a time of reaffirming the divisions that lay within.
As we look forward to Thursday and the rest of the holiday season (yes, I am aware that even Walmart is again calling it the Christmas season) let us see how it is that we can redeem the act of these gatherings around food by the way that we practice them.