Darryl's Blog
March 2005 Archives
A wifi connection so you can chat with LT while BBQing. Sweet spring is here.
I used to think that God only used certain types of people. They were good looking and had straight teeth and were confident. They were always entertaining when they spoke and they inspired their followers with confidence.
I like actually meeting people God is using. Turns out that a lot of them are shy. Some of them are awkward one-on-one. They are extroverts and introverts and some of them can't organize themselves out of a paper bag. It takes all types. Not one of them is "normal".
Jim Collins says that charisma is a liability for a leader. Guess we should have figured that out by the fact that God chose a stutterer to be his spokesperson, the runt of the litter to be his greatest king, and a half-crazy fisherman to lead his church.
Kind of nice to know that God can use me.
In Breakout Churches, Thom Rainer writes:
Good churches do not become breakout churches until the leaders confront reality. And most church leaders are unable or unwilling to confront reality...The leaders of breakout churches are do not hesitate to look at the statistics of their churches, even if the reality of the numbers is painful. They insist on having a clear awareness of the state of the church.
Later on, he writes that in three of the churches in the study, "laypeople experienced a wake-up call prior to the senior pastor." He emphasizes that this "facing up" is accompanied by unswerving faith and a desire to move into something better.
This resonates with me. I'm humbled that senior pastors can often be the last to sense what is so obvious to everyone else.
This has been the case with me. I've often been surprised how much better others sense what God is doing or not doing ahead of me. People everywhere are experiencing this "facing up" moment. They're facing up to reality and believing that there is something better. Sometimes others are way ahead of the pastors.
When people all over are doing this, I have to think God is up to something. Something good, actually.
Encouraging day today. Hung out at home a little more than usual and took it slow. Two encouraging meetings took place today.
One was with Mike Todd. Mike is one of the first bloggers I started reading. I was excited to finally be able to meet him today. We shared lunch and gabbed. He said a lot of good things. I hope he writes a book but if he doesn't, I'm stealing his stuff and publishing it. I walked away encouraged by what God is doing in his life, and grateful to have made a face-to-face connection.
Tonight, our church board met. We've been having some really good meetings this year, facing up to where we are and rethinking what we ought to be doing. I wish I could report that we have all the solutions but we don't. What we do have is a set of three really good priorities and a strong desire to act on them. I have the sense that we're not just playing the church game, we're actually trying to get into some Kingdom business.
That was a good day. As Samuel Pepys would say, "and so to bed."
Easter weekend was good overall. I thought we had one of our better Good Friday services. Sunday was okay, but it fell a little flat compared to what I thought it should be.
Next year I'd love to do a Maundy Thursday service. Nothing fancy, maybe a little foot washing and communion. That would be cool.
I have been longing for something deeper lately. I know this isn't just me, but there is this desire for substance and a sense of missing the liturgy and some of the hymns. I'm glad to be learning from some of my liturgical friends these days.
I'm the blond kid sitting on the floor.
Some think so. I'm not so sure.
I think it's important, at least for the time being. First, I might learn something. Second, part of my calling right now is to help people in my circles learn from the discussion before writing it off.
I might change my mind later, though. I'm sure my wife will tell me when I'm spending too much time.
Update: LT responds with a thoughtful answer to this question.
Wonder...permeates these resurrection stories...And if Jesus' resurrection is at the center of the Spirit's work of forming our lives, which I am convinced it is, then a sense of wonder is a big part of what goes on: surprise, puzzlement, astonishment - God at work. And right here - in Jesus, in you, in me! (Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places)
Reacting to criticisms of the emerging church, Andrew Jones says:
Where is this straw man, anyway? How about someone offer a $100 reward for the person that comes forward and says what the critics accuse them of? If there is someone out there, and I dont think there is, i want to have a word with them - they are causing a lot of grief and confusion, even though they are helping to support the evangelical book publishing industry.
A good post with two great challenges at the end.
I plan on asking this question to significant people when I meet them, so I may as well start with you. What books are so good that you read them over and over (besides the Bible)?
Just before the Passover Feast, Jesus knew that the time had come to leave this world to go to the Father. Having loved his dear companions, he continued to love them right to the end...Jesus knew that the Father had put him in complete charge of everything, that he came from God and was on his way back to God. So he got up from the supper table, set aside his robe, and put on an apron. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples, drying them with his apron...
Jesus said, "Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples - when they see the love you have for each other." (John 13, The Message)
I drone on to my kids like all dads do. I've told them that when I was a kid, we sometimes had snow up to our waists during March break. They look at me like all kids look at their dads when they talk about the good old days. Whatever.
March break is late this year, and it's FREEZING outside. We got more snow yesterday and we still have snowbanks on our front lawn.
This is good. It will give me something to talk about with my grandkids one day. Poor kids.
It's really been a while since I've visited discernment sites. They are bad for my health.
Emergent No has been an eye-opener for me. When I occasionally asked for sources, I would find that most of them were other discernment sites, most of them of them high on opinion and low on reference to primary sources. It's a lot like opening a box, only to find another box inside leading to another box after that. Lots of boxes but nothing to show for having opened all the boxes.
The thing is that it's easy to make anything look bad. (For a crazy example, LT linked to a discernment site on D.A. Carson.) I could do the same to Emergent No or any church or movement. This is exactly what the tabloids make a living doing. This is so easy to do that people even did it successfully to Jesus. They made him look so bad that they killed him for it.
The thing is, it's easy to do this with all the right motives. I've never met anyone do this on purpose.
Making people and movements look bad is ridiculously easy. Being fair is a lot tougher.
One of the scariest verses to me is in Acts 10:14 where Peter, the "rock" of the church, said no to God. It's always terrified me that I am capable of saying no to God in my efforts to remain theologically pure. This doesn't reduce the need to show discernment, but it sure influences how I show discernment. May I never say no to what God is doing because I'm too quick to misjudge others or jump to theological conclusions or that actually have nothing to do with God.
Part of discernment is discerning what God is doing. It's just as concerned with praxis as it is with theology. It models all the qualities of 1 Corinthians 13 (patient, kind, not rude, etc.), includes the good as well as the bad, always goes to the greatest lengths to be fair to others in the church. Otherwise it is not a discernment site at all, and is probably not worth reading.
I've learned the wisdom of listening to one's critics; they tend to be right an annoyingly large percentage of the time. Even when they're wrong, it's usually worth knowing what they say. Nobody is wrong all the time.
Emergent No has taken its place on my regular reading list. Carla, one of the contributors, is part of my denomination. This site is a clearinghouse for information and opinions against the emerging church, especially from a Reformed perspective. It's regularly updated and often links to material that is new to me.
The good about this site? Well, they are sometimes right. The emerging church is far from perfect, and at times it needs a gentle rebuke. I am not comfortable with every teaching contained in every emergent book, or every practice seen in emerging type churches. As others have noted, the emerging church can benefit from healthy critique. May God give us that.
The bad? At times, I feel like I'm reading a caricature of the emerging church. The best critiques take great pains to describe what they're criticizing as fairly as possible before they go to work objecting. They might say, "Now, this isn't representative of the whole movement, but..." or describe the situation so that the people they're critiquing say, "Yes, that's us." Then they can object. Emergent No has a tendency to go to the jugular and paint the emerging church in the worst light possible before critiquing it, often (unintentionally, I believe) inaccurately.
It's easy to pick the "worst of" any movement and paint it as representative of the whole. This is, I fear, what happens often at this site.
This is a friendly critique, because I hope they continue. They could provide a valuable service to us all. At present, the best thing they could do is to work very hard at building credibility by always accurately describing what they are critiquing. Meantime, I'm grateful for them.
You have to read between the lines, but I think I've got him almost convinced. Next target: LT.
"God hates sin," some emphasize. But God hates sin like the parent of a leukemia victim hates cancer. God really does love the sinner. In order to reach the sinner we will have to love them, too, and offer themselves humbly and authentically as examples of what God's power can do. (Frederica Matthewes-Green)
I'm glad to be back from Boston. So much energy went into getting ready for the second residency. Now I'm back, temporarily at least. I go to England in two weeks to check on my Dad. Then I am back, really back, until July - a good chunk of time.
I usually get away for quite a bit of the summer. Not this year. I need the time to get myself together, to prepare for September. I'm learning that the cyclical nature of our church life demands that I be ready to go in September, and that means taking part of the summer to get ready. (Our ministry year really only picks up in October and goes until Easter, which is a lousy way to build momentum.)
I feel the need to do some interior work to carry out my role at Richview. Charlene and I were talking about things tonight, both good and bad. I need some time to work things out, but I'm pretty excited about where God has us right now - but I feel like I need to come to grips a bit better with where that is.
Excited in a strange type of way. Something is up.
There are some people who make you feel grateful to be alive. I had lunch with a friend today. He is a means of grace to me every time I meet with him. He is both a mentor and a friend.
Funny how some people suck the life right out of you. Other people are just what you need. I don't need a lot of friends, but a few like this are really nice.
Just before I left for Boston, Marcus Buckingham's latest book The One Thing You Need to Know arrived in my mailbox. I'm a fan of Buckingham; I enjoyed his Now, Discover Your Strengths Book. I've been looking forward to this book for a while.
His premise: you don't need to master all the details of life once you've mastered the core. He applies this to three areas: managing people, leading organizations, and succeeding at an individual level. By success, he means sustained success: "making the greatest possible impact over the longest period of time."
I like his attempt to get at the core of these three areas. This is a welcome change from a lot of books out there on these same topics - master these ten things, follow these twenty-one laws, you'll be a leader.
Here are some of his conclusions:
Great manager - Discover what is unique about each person and capitalize on it. The acid test: Do people work harder for you than for anybody else?Great leader - Rally people to a better future. The opposite of a leader isn't a follower. The opposite of a leader is a pessimist. Optimism is more important than the right vision. Great leaders are clear. Followers fear change, and the antidote is clarity.
Top performer - Discover what you don't like doing and stop doing it. Those who sustain individual success spend their time doing work that energizes them. It's not easy, but eradicate from life anything that leaves you feeling drained.
I found myself less cynical than usual as I read this book. It didn't come off as being trite or shallow. A lot of his conclusions make sense. I learned some new things about myself along the way. It's not that I agree with everything that he says. I have to think a lot more about his ideas on leadership, for instance.
Fast Company was less than enthusiastic (although they gave him a cover story last month). Other press has been more positive. Personally, I liked it. Sometimes a good book doesn't give you good answers as much as it gets you to ask good questions. This is such a book.
You may or may not have noticed that Ed's website is down. I've been asking him why and it turns out that his hosting service has shut him down because he's a spammer. Ed's claiming it's not him, but who am I going to believe, Ed or some strange company? Yup, I'm going with the company.
To Ed: shame on you, big shame. This link is dedicated to you. And no, I don't want any of your Viagra.
Didn't take me long to start loving Eugene Peterson's latest book Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. Could quote it all (what not to highlight?) but he's bang on.
We give careful attention to spirituality because we know, from long experience, how easy it is to get interested in ideas of God and projects for God and gradually lose interest in God alive, deadening our lives with the ideas and projects. This happens a lot. Because the ideas and projects have the name of God attached to them, it is easy to assume that we are involved with God. It is the devil's work to get us worked up and thinking and acting for God and then subtly detach us from a relational obedience and adoration of God, substituting ourselves, our godlike egos, in the place originally occupied by God.
We arrived safely home last night from our little road trip. Mixed feelings about being back. I will miss the simplicity of our time away (school, family, fun, that's it) and my friends from class, not to mention the learning environment. I am excited to get back to work, but reality hasn't crashed in yet.
I think I learned a lot in the two weeks. The first week was a little slow, but the second week got much better.
I can't say enough about Haddon. We had more time with him the second week. Time with Haddon is gold. He is a rare combination of a man who is not only good at what he does, but knows how to teach it. He is authentic and a doubter in the best sense of the word. (If you don't doubt at times you're probably not taking God seriously enough.) There is a depth and a humility that is hard to describe.
I love the guys in our class too. I don't think I've laughed as hard in a long time. If you ever see Rick, ask him to do his Bathsheba first-person narrative. If he won't, get him to do Benny Hinn instead.
I'll miss my classmates too. Tomorrow, back to reality.
One of my favorite stories is of Teresa of Avila. She's sitting in the kitchen with a roasted chicken. And she's got it with both hands, and she's gnawing on it, just devouring this chicken. One of the nuns comes in shocked that she's doing this, behaving this way. She said, "When I eat chicken, I eat chicken; when I pray, I pray."If you read the saints, they're pretty ordinary people. There are moments of rapture and ecstasy, but once every 10 years. And even then it's a surprise to them. They didn't do anything. We've got to disabuse people of these illusions of what the Christian life is. It's a wonderful life, but it's not wonderful in the way a lot of people want it to be.
...Forget about being spiritual. How about loving your husband? Now that's a good place to start. But that's not what they're interested in. How about learning to love your kids, accept them the way they are?
In Christianity Today (found via). I've got his new book on order - can't wait.
It's been a good second residency so far, different from last year in a lot of ways.
The highlight: seeing everyone again. There is wisdom in the cohort idea. You really do get attached to the others in the class. I can sense some lasting relationships being formed.
It's also been great to have my family with me this time, especially this weekend. We toured Boston yesterday, with a side trip to Harvard. Today, some of us went to Lexington and Walden Pond. I'm really glad to have them here.
The class has been good. There have been more lectures and less interaction so far. I looked over my notes from the first week and it is all very good material. I'm looking forward to the next few days. We should have a bit more time with Haddon.
I'm glad that I have settled on a project (thesis) topic and that Haddon thinks it will work. Now I can get working on it.
Tomorrow: Josiah's sixth birthday!
When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. (Henry David Thoreau)
Reenactment of the Boston Massacre last night (235th anniversary)
based on a night last August in England while visiting my father
alone, far away
can't sleep. overwhelmed
needs more than I can meet
resources I don't have
answers that aren't there
i cry out to you, lord
i am not alone
i come to the one who never sleeps
and is never overwhelmed
he has more than i need
he is more than i need
he listens
my soul finds its rest
i am home
eagle's wings
rising up
hoping again
i lift up my eyes
i praise you, my lord
It's Wednesday, hump day of our first week here in Boston. Charlene and I have been battling colds. That's made for a slow start to the fun. Today, Charlene, my mother, and the kids finally got out to do something fun. They visited Salem, famous for the witch trials. Sure beats another day in the hotel.
Sunday we managed to drag ourselves out of bed after a few hours sleep to attend Park Street Church, before taking a walk around Boston Common and heading to Legal Sea Foods for lunch. Walking with a five-year-old was a little different than the type of walking we did last year.
I only have part of my voice right now; hope to get over this soon. School has been different from last year. It's been more lecture mode, and while it's been good, I miss some of the interaction we had last year. It's good to see the other students again though.