I am almost finished with Evil and the Justice of God, which I will highly recommend to, well, everyone. But, I must quote one line which I am pleased to say came from Wright’s mouth and not some of my other “heroes” (who get labeled as bigots quote often):
…somehow feminists never campaign that the satan should be referred to as “she”…
I am officially a much bigger Wright fan now than ever before.
I went back to school for a graphic design degree at the beginning of this year. After 3 semesters (including summer), I’ve decided to go a different route. Starting next semester, I will be transferring to Rose State College to pursue an associate’s degree in business. I’ve already had a few strange reactions to this decision. I think the assumption is that I’m going to become some kind of corporate sellout. Honestly, I don’t want to wear long sleeves for the rest of my life. So, obviously, I’m going another direction with this.
The initial benefit to getting a better understanding of how businesses work will help me while I’m working for my mom. Right now, I do a lot of the work at her office (she’s a counselor). But, I’d like to be able to do more, i.e. the finances. That’s short term.
Convergence has been a disjointed idea in my head for at least 5 years. My eventual vision is to get a space which has multiple functions. The full vision is yet to be realized. I think it will depend on who is involved and what direction we feel like it should go. But, in some respect, it is a “business.” If I’m going to be “managing” how everything runs and the people who are helping, I need to know at least something about management. Right now, I know next to nothing.
Starting right now, we have the opportunity to make people aware of things going on locally and around the world through our events. We also have the opportunity to treat people fairly. So, hopefully we can stick to sustainable and socially responsible business practices, long term. At our first show, we were graciously donated Fair Trade, Organic coffee from Primacafe. Great stuff. We also put out info cards about Fair Trade. We want to be able to do more things like this. As Convergence progresses, hopefully we can be part of indwelling the business world, creating relationships with nearby businesses, being hospitable to people with no agenda, and much more.
Maybe I’m walking a hard line. Maybe it’s next to impossible to remain a faithful follower of Christ and be a good “businessman,” but maybe that’s what we’re called to do, to “live the tension.”
I was able to cut down the hour conversation to about a 22 minute video. Just thought I would post it in case anyone is interested in what went down…
This past Sunday night, we cut our gathering somewhat short to have a conversation with a good friend of mine, a forum (you can download the audio here; I will also be editing some video from it soon). We knew that we would essentially be mixing our people with a lot of Colby’s friends (he’s from here but now lives in Nashville). So, of course, in my jacked up head I start going through so many things that I try to avoid thinking about.
Fusion is still a relatively small community. The few of us who are steadfastly devoted to the mission of God through our community, I think, are pretty confused as to why that is. When Scott, Gary, and Nate planted Fusion over two years ago, they refused to follow their own understanding of how to get people in the door and get them to stick around. They wanted Fusion to be a community of social connectedness, not disconnected individuals. Honestly, now, thinking about this, I think God has been moving us in such a way as to live that ideal out. And, it’s truly beautiful.
But, it’s still hard for me to ignore all the plaguing questions about not just growth but health. Are we a healthy community? I think Scripture paints the picture that if we are not, then our plug may eventually get pulled. That’s a scary picture, but it’s reality. I do truly fear becoming stagnant numerically, but then I fear the harsher reality, a much larger group of disconnected people, people who don’t feel open, vulnerable, authentic, people who aren’t living out the Missio Dei in their everyday lives, people who are finding a true disconnect between their church lives and their normal lives. And, that is truly scary. I think I would fit quite well in that kind of community. I have become good at hiding reality, faking who I truly am in order to keep up an image. So, honestly, I am still left with questions.
I listened to Eugene Peterson talk about being a pastor a few weeks ago. He had some great things to say, some things that really messed with my assumptions. Coming to respect and admire guys like Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, John Piper, Darrin Patrick, Rick McKiney, etc., it’s hard for me to imagine a church staying as small as we are forever. But, Peterson basically said the whole idea of a pastor is relational. If the pastor isn’t interacting with the people then he is not a pastor. He may be a great teacher/preacher, but he is no a pastor. For me, that creates a whole new understanding about what a pastor actually is. I think the Church as a whole sees the pastor’s primary role as teaching.
I guess my point is that during the conversation Sunday night, I could not escape my natural inclination to start weighing people’s reactions, to start making these people projects. How will we get them to come to a Fusion gathering? How can we take them to coffee to “win em over” to our church? It makes me sick to be honest about this.
I am coming to realize on a daily basis that I am not a very good Calvinist. I have to control people. Jesus says, “I will build my Church.” I say, “No, Jesus, I can do it.”
I feel very privileged. Hopefully I can share a few neat things. Right now I got nothing. Nevertheless, you should anticipate my future attempts to sound more interesting than I am.
This video is undubitable proof:
Meet Rob, founder of Convergence and now fellow contributor to this blog. Welcome to the blog my friend, look forward to future posts. And if you could, tell Eric that he needs to post on this thing sometime!
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.”
My first couple of years in college were extremely difficult. Not only was I ill prepared for serious study, I was emotionally and spiritually confused. Now, you might be wondering if any high school graduates are healthy in any of these ways when they first step onto the freshly cut grass of a university campus. At that pivotal point in life, I think most of us are ambivalent about who we really are. That is what makes the experience so valuable, so life changing. That is not to say by any means that the university experience is paramount to other experiences. It is just that it was what I needed to face, it was my rite of passage. I was drowning in many ways, and I felt as though something cataclysmic had to occur for me to become something more than who I was at that point. I was also very bitter, feeling betrayed by the church, by people who were called to be humble servants. Moreover, I was fresh out a relationship that had lasted over a couple of years, and it was very much an anchor for me in times when violent winds threatened to capsize me. I approached college life very dissonant about reality, relationships, and God.
And yet there was something about this setting that prepared me for a truth that I had been waiting on for quite some time. I had grown up in church, not willingly by the way, for the whole thing really perplexed me as far as I can remember. As a child I talked during Sunday school lessons, I can even remember cursing one time and wondering if God was going to send lightning to kill me right at that moment. For the life of me I could not remember the names of the disciples, the books of the bible, nor could I recite a single passage. I found my peers to be from quaint, serene looking families, and I wondered if mine was distorted or if I was just the odd one out. The kids had no problem doing “sword drills”, which consisted of finding a book in the bible and its subsequent chapter. They did this in seconds while I was still thumbing through the pages to find the index, at the same time frantically looking around to see if anyone noticed that I had still not found the right page. Needless to say, I felt myself peculiar in this group of perfection incarnate.
As a teenager, I found it odd that we would speak of a person who lived in the past as living today, that somehow a diety lived “in my heart”, and that I could get out of hell free if I just prayed one prayer and really meant it. One of the bigger issues for me was that I would notice that the people who proclaimed these truths seemed superficial and smiled more than the usual person should. I had grown weary of religion, of church, and I decided by college that I was not going to participate anymore. It was probably a self righteous move on my part, but in the middle of all that messiness there was a kernal of innocence for what I desired.
As I said before, I was confused about every aspect of my life; my reality, my relationships (to others and to myself), and with my God. As I began to take courses, I was astonished to learn in depth about other religions, other philosophies, other stories that were told by different cultures. Who was I to think that I was right entirely? Was I right at all? I also longed for a community that strove to live boldly, to serve fervantly, and to love others in a gentle and humble manner. Where does such a place exist? Who dreams these dreams as well? As far as my relationship to God, I understood, on some minute level, that forgiveness was part of the whole deal, and that was very comforting for me. And yet I wanted more. What was this more? If I was “right with God”, why did I still feel so alien, so incomplete?
I’m more than certain many of you have had these same thoughts. When you look at other cultures, is there something you envy in them that you feel we are lacking? And when you listen to other people tell stories of how their faith has impacted them, and how authentic their description seems to be, do you question as well if their experience was real or not?
And what about your relationships? I think, when you really search yourself, no matter how hardened or how cynical you may have become towards other people and our capacity to know and love each other, you really long for people that love and live boldly. And you wish the same from yourself more often than not. But what about that loaded term… God? Who is that? What does (s)he really want? Is there anything out there in the first place?
Maybe you have had similar thoughts and dreams. Perhaps, as we begin to look closely at what we are dealing with, our shared dissonance can be explained. One of the things I realized as a collegiate, and sadly I learned this latter than most, was that the world I was experiencing was unjust. It was as if everything had been cracked a bit, maybe in reality it was all broken, and it was in desperate need of being repaired. And the thing of it is, everyone knows it deep down. I think the reason we long for a better world, and why our hope for its coming is so familial, is because we were made for that kind of place. I sensed this in my late high school years reading C.S. Lewis, but it didn’t quite take a hold of me until I started reading the works of Dallas Willard, Rodney Clapp, N.T. Wright, and Brian McLaren. They were all saying a certain phrase that seemed too beautiful for me to understand, and it was truly too great to be grasped. It was the phrase “the kingdom of God”.
As I began to read these authors, and as they forced me to look back into the pages of scripture, I began to realize how much this idea is prevalent in the gospels. Even more, this idea is embedded throughout the new testament, deeply intertwined in Paul’s message, and I believe we fail to recognize it’s presence because for Paul to mention it throughout his letters would have been completely tedious due to the fact that his readers were extensively informed about it previously.
And, like Jesus said, the kingdom does seem hidden to most of us, with its message of feasts and workers and harvests and such. It is foreign to us and yet familial. It is a putting of the world to rights, and it is the answer we long for, yet it is something we have never experienced up to this point. I think it is the dream that will one day awaken us. And I hope that when we wake we won’t be able to tell where the dream ended and reality began again. Maybe, to put it more accurately, it is the only dream that will ever fully be accomplished. If there is a metaphor that I have come to embrace as true for this dreaming of the reign of God, it is the image of eating the crumbs off a table. If Jesus describes God’s kingdom as a feast that is being prepared, then our dreams of its reality are the crumbs that fall off of God’s dining table. When we begin to taste what the world should be like in these crumbs, and as we begin to experience justice and take part in it as well, we become hungry for more. But a crumb never satisfies, it only prepares us for what is to come. Justice is coming, truth is becoming immanent, love is drawing near, treasures are being found.
North Carolina beat Winthrop tonight, it was a tough game but Tyler Hansbrough (pictured above) led the way once again. He’s a great player, and he’s just a sophomore! I have been a North Carolina fan for years now, and I can’t really explain why I became a fan in the first place but I am one and thats that. My family has a tradition of watching the Duke/UNC games (Dad and sister are Duke fans, mom sides with me on UNC), and now that my sister is returning from Mexico I am sure we will revive the tradition. I present this information because I want to share a prediction… North Carolina will beat Duke in both conference games this year! That hasn’t happened in a while but it will happen this year.
My rant concerning UNC is just part of my overall excitement about the return of college basketball. This is my favorite time of year, and during at least one moment each day I am glued to the television, either watching a game or watching highlights on ESPN. I know, its sad isn’t it? But at least I’m honest. Oh, right now ORU is beating Kansas! We’ll see how long that lasts. Well, back to the television, sorry. Will post later…
I’ve been attempting to do the Daily Offices using Phyllis Tickle’s The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime, and I thought I would share with you all the appointed prayer for the week:
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant me so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that I may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
