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Everybody wants to be fancy and new. Nobody wants to be themselves. I mean, maybe people want to be themselves, but they want to be different, with different clothes or shorter hair or less fat. It's a fact. If there was a guy who just liked being himself and didn't want to be anybody else, that guy would be the most different guy in the world and everyone would want to be him. (Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz)

May you become more of the you God made you to be in 2005. Happy New Year.

I just started reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. Miller is supposed to be "a cleaned-up, Gen X Anne Lamott with testosterone" according to Christianity Today. He writes about God from a position of commitment but still sounds like he's being "human and honest" according to John Ortberg. Miller says, "The more I climb outside my pat answers, the more invigorating the view, the more my heart enters into worship." Sounds good to me.

I even know someone who knows Miller. Rick McKinley is in my cohort at Gordon-Conwell, and is also Miller's pastor. Knowing Rick helps me understand Miller a bit better. Not everyone is real enough to have Rick as a pastor, and I mean that as a compliment.

I'm at half-speed looking for something therapeutic to read, and this is looking like it fits the bill. This jumped out at me today:

I believe the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man's mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God. I was into habit. I grew up going to church, and I got used to hearing about God. He was like Uncle Harry or Aunt Sally except we didn't have pictures.

Miller is one of those authors who makes you think, "I could write that!" except, of course, we can't. I'm enjoying his honesty. It's a good time to get real as we're facing a brand New Year and some overwhelming news from overseas.

So are many other organizations. Give now.

Update: Bene has a list of aid organizations that are accepting donations.

J.I. Packer explains better than I could a few months back.

Even Charlene is enjoying our wireless music receiver. (She's not as big a geek as I am.) It's nice to have 3,000+ songs streaming into our living room.

1) When weakness comes I’ll turn to my strength (Christ) instead of my weakness (food, sin, withdrawal, etc.)

2) Because the Kingdom is bigger than culture and comforts, I’ll resolutely work alongside modern or postmodern as we fight our common enemy

3) Listen more and talk less

4) Approach every person as if it’s my last day on earth

5) Spend as much time encouraging other as I do sitting at this keyboard

And more from Fred Peatross

...when you are honestly surprised by a gift that you wrapped for yourself ("What could it be?")

"A stable once held something inside that was bigger than our whole world." (C.S. Lewis)

A blessed and shalom-full Christmas to you. (And happy birthday to LT as well!)

Early in our marriage, I did something that shocked Charlene. I bought a carton of egg nog at Beckers. As soon as I got out of the store, I opened that carton and took a swig. According to Charlene, that is kind of like pushing your mother into a puddle. Egg nog is for drinking out of your best crystal.

Time has gone by, and we have had that argument for many years. I think I have won though. A couple of years ago I caught Charlene taking a swig. That brings more joy to me than drinking a hundred cartons of egg nog out of crystal.

14 years

The bad news is what Rogers did to get it working again. Think cable wire strung from tree to tree down the street like a laundry line, terminating at our house. Yikes.

On the plus side, I couldn't wait for Charlene to get home to watch her reaction. I'm also looking forward to seeing the mailman get whacked by the line tomorrow as he takes a short cut across our front lawn. On the downside, it's going to be a long winter until they get around to burying the wire, and I'm not sure I'll neighbors will be talking to us after this.

Update: Ed asked for a picture.

Richview's staff decked the halls last night and partied. First, a nice dinner - good food but disappointing ambiance. Then off to Black Creek Pioneer Village for their Christmas by lamplight program. Fun was had by all except for Ed who was bored out of his mind. A good night overall.

I'm not posting much lately because my Internet connection at home is down. I hope Rogers gets to fixing it soon.

"A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes...and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent." (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

From Preaching Now:

A leading management consultant advises clergy to concentrate on their commission to preach and counsel, according to a news item in the Religion Today daily news summary for Nov. 30.

Peter F. Barrenstein, who works in Germany for the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, believes that local churches should hire an executive to take care of managerial and administrative tasks, leaving pastors free for theological reflection and evangelism. He also argues that pastors should not focus their efforts on serving a small "core congregation" of faithful worshippers, but "they should develop a counter strategy to a shrinking church."

At Barrenstein's initiative, McKinsey conducted an extensive survey of Protestant churches in Munich about ten years ago. However, the management consultant insists, "The church is not a commercial venture." The aim of bringing people to faith in Christ could never be achieved by management techniques. "That is the job of the Holy Spirit."

Another great manifesto from Change This

U.K. Lords Will Debate Ending Male Favoritism in Monarchy

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K.'s House of Lords will consider legislation next month that would end the tradition of favoring male heirs to the British throne over females and allow the sovereign to marry a Roman Catholic.

Modernizing the monarchy is sort of like adding power steering to a horse and carriage.

From The National Post:

Get thee to a former nunnery 90 minutes west of Saskatoon for a mere $100,000 - Think a pool in your yard is a selling feature? Try a moss-covered stone grotto, replete with a statue of the Virgin Mary. Or an in-house bakery. The latter two, along with a four-metre rooftop cross, are part of a 20,000-square-foot, red-brick convent converted into a private home. The going price is a mere $100,000, with annual property taxes of $639.74. The four-level castle is set on a vast tract of land complete with a tree-lined Brideshead Revisited carriage path up the centre of the grounds. "When the wife and I are away at work, the population is zero," said Ron Kolenosky, the owner for the past eight years of the property 90 minutes west of Saskatoon. Before that, the convent had sat empty since the sisters left 25 years ago.

Now that the Supreme Court of Canada has handed down a decision on gay marriage, I have a wish list for how the church in Canada deals with this and other issues.

1. Do the homework - I am fairly conservative on the issue. Nevertheless, I am frustrated by some who are conservative on the issue who refuse to do their homework. What does the Bible say about this issue? Unless you can look at the cold, hard evidence, you have nothing to say. Actually, I don't think you have anything to fear if you look at Scripture, but you have nothing to say until you do.

2. Show compassion - This all changes when you get to know gays and lesbians. I believe that there is nothing wrong with experiencing homosexual temptations (experiencing temptation is not sinful). Imagine facing same-sex attraction and experiencing nothing but condemnation. Many say that these temptations never stop, no matter how much a person would like them to. The more conservative you are on this issue, the more compassion you ought to feel.

3. Develop a theology of social action. I find that many are still stuck in Constantine's model of Christendom ("The empire must become Christian!"). We do not live in a Christian society. We are supposed to be counter-cultural. We should not be surprised when those who don't follow Christ have different convictions than we do. We need to develop an understanding of what salt and light means. I don't think it means legislating our convictions.

4. Live differently - The church could have more credibility in this area if we lived differently. The reality is that we are no better at the marriage than society at large. The best defense of marriage is not legislation; it's having strong marriages ourselves.

I see a note of hope in this decision. Many of us have thought of Canada as if it used to be a Christian nation. As this becomes less of a reality, we have a much better understanding of how Christendom never worked, and we have a better understanding of what it means to be salt and light in a world that doesn't follow Jesus.

Dallas Willard writes:

The overshadowing event of the last two centuries of Christian life has been the struggle between Orthodoxy and Modernism. In this struggle the primary issue has, as a matter of fact, not been discipleship to Christ and a transformation of soul that expresses itself in pervasive, routine obedience to his "all that I have commanded you." Instead, both sides of the controversy have focussed almost entirely upon what is to be explicitly asserted or rejected as essential Christian doctrine. In the process of battles over views of Christ the Savior, Christ the Teacher was lost on all sides.

Discipleship as an essential issue disappeared from the Churches, and, with it, there also disappeared realistic plans and programs for the transformation of the inmost self into Christlikeness. One could now be a Christian forever without actually changing in heart and life. Right profession, positive or negative, was all that was required. This has now produced generations of professing Christians which, as a whole, do not differ in character, but only in ritual, from their non-professing neighbors; and, in addition, a massive population has now arisen in America which believes in God, even self-identifies as "spiritual," but will have nothing to do with Churches--often as a matter of pride.

What is new in the current revival of interest in spiritual formation is the widespread recognition that by-passing authentic, pervasive, and thorough transformation of the inner life of the human being is not desirable, not necessary, and may be not permissible. We are seeing that the human soul hungers for transformation, for wholeness and holiness, is sick and dying without it, and that it will seek it where it may--even if it destroys itself in the process. We are seeing that the Church betrays itself and its world if it fails to make clear and accessible the path of thoroughgoing inner transformation through Christ.

From Canada.com:

TORONTO (CP) - Carlos Delgado says he is leaving Toronto with no grudges, although the first baseman doesn't think the Blue Jays did all they could to re-sign him.

I still remember watching Delgado hit homers off the Windows Restaurant as a rookie. Now that he's gone, I don't think I know the name of any other Jay except for Roy Halliday. It's somehow getting harder to care.

I attended the Evangelical Theological Society meetings a couple of years back. I loved it. People presented papers on ideas on some pretty important topics. You couldn't get away with much. Often, the people you were refuting were sitting in the room listening to you talk. You had to be pretty sure about what you were saying when they are sitting right in front of you.

Not so long ago, it was easy to write about someone, and they would never know. Now, if I write about somebody or link to them, they will know, at least if they care to.

I love the accountability this creates. I love that you can't post something and hide. I love that smart people are a mouse click away. I love that I'm forced to interact with people who don't agree with me. You can't live in a cocoon if you blog.

I hate that so many discussions don't take advantage of this opportunity - we often end up talking past each other, and we end up more entrenched than ever.

I love that on an average day, over a hundred people read this page and I have no idea who they are. This is the best and the worst of blogging.

From The National Post:

TORONTO - A morning snowstorm, the city's first of the year, paralyzed the financial capital of Canada yesterday, snarling traffic, closing roads and causing many commuters to be hours late for work.

And all of the havoc was caused by just two centimetres of snow.

Jordon is never going to let me hear the end of this. We live in Canada, people. Buy snow tires or something.

Pernell is peeved (he uses a different word), and that is okay:

I will post more about this soon in a more theologically reflective way, but for now I just want to say I am totally disappointed and angry. This is wrong. Period.

Pernell is writing about the Fellowship's decision to restrict the pastoral role to men.

Some reflections:

It wasn't just men who made this decision. Women spoke in favor of it too. While some of this is no doubt motivated by sexism, I want to emphasize that it is possible to believe that women shouldn't pastor due to theological reasons. I know this is difficult to accept for many. (I write as one who doesn't agree with this position or the decision of the Fellowship.)

Decisions of one group affect the church at large. Read the comments and you understand that many who don't even know what the Fellowship is are moved by this decision. We are wrong when we think we are autonomous (a cherished Baptist notion). The Archbishop of Canterbury is right in what he says about autonomy:

The Windsor Report rightly warns us against an idea of ‘autonomy’ that simply takes it for granted that every local church does what it thinks is right...in our Communion, God has given us a gift of something more than just a collection of local bodies. We often forget the countless informal links that bind us, parish to parish, person to person, across the Communion...It is surely worth working to honour this gift as best we can. It is worth not giving up too easily - as if we felt able to say, ‘I have no need of you’ (I Cor.12.21).

Mike says in the comments, "We really have no idea what this feels like for women." That is not just political correctness. This should at least lead to humility and concern among those who have made this decision.

Finally, one more reflection. Stephen Shields writes in Next Wave: "Differentiate Emotional and Logical Statements: Respond to every emotional statement with empathy and to every logical statement with inquiry." There is a time for logic. There is also a time to acknowledge that we are dealing with people, and some of them have been hurt, and that matters.

From MissionThink:

Those who argue that Paul sounds nothing like Jesus are misreading Paul. Of course he used different vocabulary--he was an apostle to Gentiles! He couldn't toss around words like "Kingdom of God" and "Messiah"--these words mean nothing to Gentiles. He had to instead use terms like "salvation" and "Christ (annointed one)" etc.

The problem is that we've read Paul through the lens of Luther. And then we look through that new double-lens into the Gospels and find ourselves often confused. What if we were to read Paul through the lens of the Gospel? If we did that, we'd find that Paul makes sense after all, and that he is a friend to Jesus the Messiah.

Right on. I don't think we realize how revolutionary Paul's teaching was in his time. Good rant.

Last night, I took two photo CDs to Blacks. It was their deadline for photo calendars if I want them back for Christmas. They wouldn't take them, despite telling me earlier that bringing in CDs would be okay.

How come? "We need the prints so we can scan them to a computer file for the calendar." I tried to explain to them that the CDs already contained the computer files, so scanning would be unnecessary. "Sorry, that's the way we've always done it."

I once asked if a store took American Express and they said yes. When I handed them my card, they said, "Sorry, we don't take American Express." I've been with Ed when he ordered a BLT and they asked, "Would you like lettuce and tomato on that?" Obviously, brains are optional in some retail establishments.

A reporter visits a megachurch and reports on the experience:

I tell Pastor Tim that, while my experience has been pleasant, I still have reservations about the evangelical movement in general. To me there is too much hypocrisy, too many contradictions. I don’t understand, for example, why some Christians will acknowledge their sin, but act infallible. I’m skeptical of the insularity of evangelicals who denounce rock music and popular culture, only to create imitations for themselves.

Many of our services are geared to be attractive to those who don't attend church (the attractional assumption), so it's important to see the experience through their eyes. A fascinating article (found via Church Marketing Sucks).

These guys want to shut down Landover Baptist (a parody site), but their stuff is just as over the top and it's not a parody. They even offer a Baby Jesus giftshop. What a world. Found via Boing Boing.

Update: The page isn't working right now. I'm guessing they're getting too many hits.

Further update: Boing Boing reports that it is a spoof. The Baby Jesus thong should have been a giveaway I guess.

From Christian Century:

I left the convention cautiously hopeful. I am attracted to the pragmatic ecumenism of Emergent, whose goal is not to create a unified structure at the top but to recognize that the churches are going to need an exchange of gifts at the grassroots. I am intrigued by the creative possibilities of ancient-future worship—liturgical structure overlaid with image, music and movement, technologically aware but refusing to flaunt it. I am heartened by the search for a theological “third way”—a generous orthodoxy that may yet arise from the dialogue of postconservatives and postliberals. I am encouraged by the vision of a truly missional church, both relevant and resistant, that incarnates a real alternative to mainline “maintenance” churches and evangelical “megachurches.”

So often the church is renewed “from the edges, not the center,” as Rowan Williams has pointed out. As we attend to what is emerging at the edges of the American scene, we would do well to keep that lesson in mind and to heed Williams’s further advice: “Be grateful for new things happening, even if they are not easily digestible.”

I had heard that this article was more insightful than the CT one (perhaps less emphasis on hair). Some good thoughts here but nothing really new.

These two shots are taken in sequence. In the first one, Josiah's getting ready to crank a foam ball at me. I won't tell you what the second shot is about, but all I can say is that kid has good aim.

I'm spending today at Ontario Place with the family and three of Christina's friends (a late birthday party). I alternate between being excited and dreading the experience (spent the day with a bunch of young girls anytime lately?). Right now I'm excited. Should be fun - pictures to come.

Steve McMillan and others help us slow down to anticipate, examine, and prepare throughout Advent. A great idea.

From Emergesque:

I have no doubt that the emerging church and mainstream evangelicalism have something to learn reciprocally. I do doubt that this conversation will occur without pain. Unfortunately, when we are at our worst, we might have a tendency to absolutize and "demonize".

But the conversation does not have to be a fight; it can be a dance - a beautiful dance of thesis/antithesis working its way toward a greater grasp of truth, a more profound experience of community, and even a closer relationship with the One Who knows all truth.

This can occur when those who disagree:

-remember that a gentle answer turns away wrath,
-lean toward the other rather than away,
-seek very hard to listen,
-ask non-rhetorical and genuinely curious questions,
-do the very difficult spadework of working to understand the presuppositions of the other,
-believe the best about the other rather than the worst,
-and, most importantly, be willing to provisionally consider that the other may be saying something of value - that they might even be able to correct.

If these things are done, the coming storm might yield a beautiful harvest.

Right on.

Maggi Dawn writes (emphasis mine):

The story Bob tells in his sermon is a personal testament to the grace of God. He mentions, among other things, how a thin concept of salvation had trapped him into a notion of repentance as "sin management" - a concept I remember well from my years in conservative evangelicalism, but have also seen played out in Roman and Anglo-Catholic settings. I don't think this thin, mean theology is the preserve of one wing of the church or another, but is in itself a kind of sin - a replacing of the grace of God with yet another straitjacket that keeps us trapped into something less than our full humanity. So deeply sinful is this notion of "sin-management" that I almost wonder whether GOd might prefer us to be joyfully abandoned to a few vices than the "miserable sinners"* religion would turn us into.

Bob eventually discovered that repentance is not about managing sins, but about a turning of heart into the Grace of God, a transformative experience that bears little resemblance to the thin and mean account of keeping one's behaviour in line with the Church's rules. Whatever is thin and mean cannot be of God. Grace allows for human weakness; grace allows us to venture out safely. When my son climbs trees, I hope he won't fall out and scrape his knees. I know he might, but the importance of climbing trees leads me to allow him to take the risk. SO it is with God: he would rather we climbed a few trees than stayed on the ground being safe.