Great music… (Rob)

I got a lot of great stuff for Christmas, but this is by far one of my favs…

Rosie Thomas (get all of her albums), Denison Witmer (I love most of his stuff), and Sufjan Stevens. Together.

Great Music… (Daniel)

 

Ok, I know that you probably spent way too much money on Christmas gifts already and are a little starved for cash, however, if you can afford the CD buy The Dust of Retreat by Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s.  This is just a great album from start to finish.

 Well, look forward to some more posts on The Great Giveaway soon, I know I took a break from reviewing the book but I haven’t stopped reading it so please check in again on that if you are interested. Have a good day!

Merry Christmas!!! – Daniel

 

 

I don’t know if I have ever enjoyed the Christmas season as much as I have this year. I think what has made it more of an enriching experience has been the writing of Frederick Buechner, the praying of the Office, and the incorporation of Advent at Rivendell. I think for many of us in the West, it takes time for us to strip the layers of consumerism and individualism away to see that this season is really about giving. And the first to start all the giving is God, and I think that is really beautiful. I wish you all a Merry Christmas. Take care…

 

 

Obama (Rob)

If he runs, I’m voting for him, for several reasons. But, I think he made a great point in his “Call to Renewal” (for Sojourners) speech:

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

Of course, this is a hot issue. I definitely tend to agree with Hauerwas in his approach toward abortion, BUT not in his approach toward political involvement. So, I think Volf is right, Hauerwas has nothing helpful to say about this.

Towards a Postmodern Ecclesiology: The Church as a Culture, Not as a Company – Daniel

*I think, per request of Kyle, I may signify my blog posts by adding my name to the title as I have done above. Rob and Eric, I’m not pressuring you guys to do this but I will probably do this in the future just to make it easier for the readers, however few they may be!

With that out of the way, let me get on with my summary and response to David Fitch’s first chapter in The Great Giveaway. First off, Fitch begins with a set of questions: What does a “successful” church look like? How can we tell one that is sick versus one that is emotionally healthy and pressing towards its true goal? Fitch believes that the essential roots of the church have been compromised due to its capitulation to modernity, in other words the goals that we are attaining to are not the goals set forth by Jesus Christ nor to what Paul or other New Testament writers are getting at when they talk about the “body of Christ”. In modernity, the focus is on “effectiveness and effeciency” (pg. 28) and producing valuable goods for outsiders. Ultimately, these ideas form the agendas of numbers, size, and capital that drives American culture. In the American evangelical church, the focus over the past few decades has turned to the number of individual decisions for Christ and the attendance levels in these churches. The church has modeled itself after the culture and its focus on two things: individualism and business-oriented forms of organization (pg. 32).

Worship Leader?

Over the past few years, I have increasingly had a problem with this phrase. At the same time, I have difficulty describing exactly what I do for the church, and even what I will be doing more of in the future.

We talk a lot about worship being “all of life.” I think when you automatically assume “worship” means “music,” you are narrowing the focus of worship to one aspect, an aspect that for many people isn’t a primary emphasis. I’ve tried to integrate the language of “song leader” or “musician,” which, really, is genius. A person plays or sings a song, therefore they are a song leader. Wow!

We’ve talked for a long time about ways to integrate various expressions of worship within our corporate gathering, like painting or photography or poetry. We’re still working these things out, but I still fear going with the flow of the American church — just saying, well, everyone else is calling this “worship” so we should too.

I don’t want to denigrate the value of coming together with the intention of meeting God. That is a unique way to worship.

At the same time, I don’t want to lose the value of “leading,” not in a superior fashion, where the person holding the microphone is somehow more important than everyone else who is participating in corporate worship (even simply by their presence). But, leading in the sense of somewhat “directing” the flow of the gathering.

So, I’m constantly back to the same questions. What is worship? What is music? What is creativity? What is art? These plague me. I guess they should.

Evil & the Justice of God pt.1

I want to post a few quotes from this great book. I read it this past week in preparation for this message.

He starts talking about how we tend to make moral judgments, and specifically relates it to pedophilia. He says that this seems to be one of the few universally accepted moral evils, but

we should be aware of the unthinking moralism which is so eager to condemn it simply because we hate the thought of it rather than on properly thought-out grounds.

I think his suggesting “restorative justice” as a way forward is something which is both very hard to accept (especially when it comes to those things we judge as “worse” evils), and very encouraging. I’ve spent at least a few hours this past week reading story after story about how this way of dealing with people and communities is making great strides toward reconciliation, as opposed to simply us vs. them. What would our families, our communities, our neighborhoods, our cities, and beyond, look like if they embraced restorative justice rather than distributive?

I also think he makes a great point, which I may tend to overemphasize (?), here:

The problem of the individual… is presented in the Bible as a subset of the larger problem of Israel, of humankind and of creation itself.

I know it’s hard for most people to think this way. We’ve been programmed to think that each person’s individual problems are primarily their own problems, and they have no relation to anyone else. My problems are my fault and responsibility, alone, and that person’s problems are their fault and their responsibility, alone. But, what would it look like if we each took responsibility for each other, holistically? Rather than using the modern language of “rights,” which is the selfish way of insisting this or that for myself, how can we shift back to the concept of responsibility toward others?

This is one of the statements that largely shaped my teaching Sunday night, about how Christ’s life, ministry, death, and resurrection was to rid the world of injustice, but

this was not intended simply as a distant goal for which one was compelled to wait in passive expectation. God’s future had already broken into the present in Jesus, and the church’s task consisted not least of implementing that achievement and thus anticipating that future.

I had Laura Thomasson (Jared’s wife) read a passage from the first section of the book of Acts. In that section, Jesus gives the great commission, and then the angels ask the disciples, “Why are you standing there, looking up at the sky?” They had been told what to do, but they weren’t doing anything.

I’m sure I will post some more from this highly recommended book.

Book Review

The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business, Parachurch Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism, and Other Modern Maladies by David E. Fitch

For the next couple of weeks I’ll be reviewing the book pictured above. I’ll introduce a chapter from the book, give a summary and a short response to his proposal…

Some ramblings…

My pastor, Kyle, has some ramblings over on his blog, and since I can’t seem to type anything of value I will at least type out some ramblings of my own. I mean, hey, it’s written in the “About” section that there will tend to be some meaningless stuff on here so please don’t hold me accountable for what I am about to write:

• This weekend I am heading to Little Rock, AR with some Rivendell folk (weather permitting) for a Brennan Manning conference. I am hoping that we will make it, I have wanted to go to this for quite some time.
• If I’m gone during the weekend, can we get some comments from readers about how we want to hear from Mr. Eric Jensen? There is a reason I wanted him to contribute to this blog, and yet he has not given me the satisfaction of reading any of his posts. Rob, on the other hand, has been really persistent with his writing and I like to read his stuff, also I like the fact that Rob is becoming an N.T. Wright fan. That is good news my friends!
•  I’m becoming fans of the bands Pedro the Lion (now extinct) and Copeland. Good sounds and good messages. Music needs both, and most popular music these days lacks both. Why the disconnect?
• Is anyone else watching college basketball this year? UNC beat # 1 Ohio State! Did I not tell you that they would be good? Remember? I’m hoping Jeff Capel can turn around the OU basketball program (quiet Kyle- I know you have an opinion on that), he’s got the Duke past but will he have a Duke-like future?

Well that is all from me. Have a good weekend and I hope to start posting some stuff next week to get into a better writing groove. Take care and be safe on the roads (if you live in the midwest)!