Darryl's Blog
August 2005 Archives
From jordoncooper.com:
Something is wrong with me these last couple of days. Seizures and undescribable pain across my body in so many places at once. Relief in one area means pain in another area. Instead of getting better, I am coming to grips with the fact that I am getting slowly worse which is incredibly discouraging. I had hoped to be back at work this week but right now I am just hoping to make it through the night.
Don't forget to pray for Wendy and Mark too.
In 2002, I preached a sermon called Sacred Parenting. I'm pretty sure I got the idea for the name from a book called Sacred Marriage, which asks the great question, "What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?"
A couple of years later (2004), Gary Thomas, author of Sacred Marriage released a book called Sacred Parenting - the same title as my sermon. He must have Googled the title, because I got a letter from him last week, along with copies of two of his books:
Kind of cool to hear from an author you've enjoyed, and even cooler to receive free books. Any authors out there, I would be glad to name a sermon after your book if you send me a free copy (of course there are exceptions). Seriously, though - thanks, Gary!
Fifteen years ago, I invited Charlene out to help me pick out a new pair of glasses. That was the excuse. Where did I really take her? To Corner House Restaurant, near Casa Loma. After dinner, on a walk, I pulled the ring out my pocket and asked her a question, and the rest is history.
Before I got married, I learned a lot about marriage from a counselor in seminary who was trying to teach us what to expect when we started counseling couples one day. Nothing, of course, prepares you. Marriage has been different from what I expected, probably harder, but in every way better than I imagined back as a single man. I'm a lucky (blessed) man because she said yes fifteen years ago tonight.
He may be leaving Richview, but at least he's leaving with good taste (a 14" iBook). Way to go, Ed!
I resisted posting this quotes, but it was on my mind a lot yesterday:
When we have been wounded by the Church, our temptation is to reject it. But when we reject the Church it becomes very hard for us to keep in touch with the living Christ. When we say, "I love Jesus, but I hate the Church," we end up losing not only the Church but Jesus too.The challenge is to forgive the Church. This challenge is especially great because the Church seldom asks us for forgiveness, at least not officially. But the Church as an often fallible human organization needs our forgiveness, while the Church as the living Christ among us continues to offer us forgiveness.
It is important to think about the Church not as "over there" but as a community of struggling, weak people of whom we are part and in whom we meet our Lord and Redeemer. (Henry Nouwen)
Had a great day at the CNE today with the family. I'll clean this up later, but this is a quick and rough movie of the Human Cannonball. Glad I don't do that three times a day.
From Jesus the Radical Pastor:
Jesus was a pastor (a shepherd) and while he likes old ladies and sports and the deacon chair and Kiwanis and type A's and the rest, the last thing to ever enter his mind was to be non-missional. Jesus = Shepherd = Missional. Jesus loved wildly and left the flock and took the dangerous journey for one here, another there, a handful here, two depressed ones over there. The lost need the pastors more than the found according to Jesus.So, when the exalted Christ gave "pastors" to the church, they are no less missional than apostles and evangelists. Will we continue to let limp evangelical popularism define "pastor" or will we let Jesus Christ define "pastor"?
Now, let's go get a beer.
If you like this rant, you may like his book as well.
From the OkCupid! Death Test:
According to our research, you'll be dead by December 2053 at age 86.- probable cause - cancer
As you can plainly see, you have more health & vitality than the average man.
You have 17659.8 days left on this earth. You've already lived 44% of your life.
(Via Marc, who's scheduled to die a few months earlier than I am.)
A Brit reflects on his experience at Willow from an emerging/alt.worship perspective. He models generosity and honesty in his evaluation. This paragraph stood out to me:
...while I dislike the ‘church as corporation’ model I discovered at Willow, I am challenged by their commitment to doing things well and getting things done. Too often there’s an amateurishness to building Church (and, for that matter, doing worship) among alt/emerging groups which has more to do with laziness and slipshod approaches than to do with theology or missiology. What’s wrong with working out a clear plan, with a clearly stated set of outcomes and then working and planning to see those outcomes come to fruition? To me the answer would be ‘nothing, provided that the whole process is subject to continuous review and adjustment and is realistic about the fact that we’re culturally plotting a course in unmapped territory’.
found via
So our church is having a garage sale. It's not to get rid of junk, although it will do that. It's not to raise money for Urban Promise, although it will do that too. It's an excuse to get out of our church building and to get to know some of our neighbors - sort of like borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbor when really what you want to do is to get to know your neighbor.
You can't change the world with a garage sale, but you can begin to see the community differently, and to begin to ask what Jesus wants done there. More here.
What I liked about the Summit:
Stories - lots of them! Stories about what is happening in a AIDs- and poverty-stricken township in South Africa, the inner city of Detroit. Lots of stories.
Diversity - This may be one of the first conferences I've attended that wasn't dominated by white men. Hurray!
Justice - The mainstream evangelical church is discovering justice. These quotes hit home to me: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" (Martin Luther King Jr.). Or this: "If a church is surrounded by poverty, it has to do something about that poverty" (Mosa Sono). Almost half of the speakers spoke on issues of justice rather than business.
Southwest - If you're going to learn from business, you may as well learn from one that loves people and hates being a corporation. Listening to Colleen Barrett was a treat.
Hybels getting ribbed - Hybels took a lot of good-natured abuse. That was fun, really fun. Nice to see him not being taken too seriously.
Authenticity - Maybe it was just me but everything seemed a lot more real this year. The people on stage (including the music teams) weren't preened and perfect. 50% less hype - very welcome.
At this risk of complaining, here is some of what I didn't like:
Wifi - would it kill you to allow us to blog while we're there? We should have picked the Stoney Creek site - kudos to them for providing wifi.
Parking lot attendants - They have power issues. Or else I do. Either way we didn't get along.
Money - At a minimum of $169 a head it's too expensive. Decentralize the simulcast sights so that any church with a dish can pay a nominal fee to watch it. 53,000 people at $169 a head = $9 million dollars. Bet they could do it for half that.
Finally a suggestion to the Willow Creek Association: Do a Technorati search and see what other bloggers are saying about the Summit. May be more useful than the feedback forms!
I know these are corny but they are perfect for a Monday. Church bulletin bloopers:
Announcement in the church bulletin for a National PRAYER & FASTING Conference: "The cost for attending the Fasting and Prayer conference includes meals."Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 pm in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King.
The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been cancelled due to a conflict.
The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water" The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus"
Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack's sermons.
During the absence of our Pastor, we enjoyed the rare privilege of hearing a good sermon when J.F. Stubbs supplied our pulpit.
The Pastor will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing "Break Forth into Joy."
Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.
Eight new choir robes are currently needed, due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
The senior choir invites any member of the congregation who enjoys sinning to join the choir.
For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
Attend and you will hear an excellent speaker and heave a healthy lunch.
From Preaching Now
Ed, a friend of mine for the past ten years and a co-worker for the past six, is leaving Richview to pastor a church in Port Colbourne.
I'm excited for him. I think this is a great fit and I think God is in this.
I'm also looking forward to having Ed as just my friend again. Before he came to Richview, it was easier to have a relationship outside a church context. When you work together, that tends to dominate the relationship.
If you think of Ed and his family, pray for them as they make this move. We're going to be sending them off with a potluck lunch (Baptist love language is food) on August 28.
Update: Ed blogs the details.
Technorati lists some reactions to the Summit including this:
Thousands of church leaders came to a leadership conference and sat through a Justice conference. What?...Has the evangelical church, as Jim Wallis predicted, begun to tip to the whole gospel? Why has it taken these great men 30+ years of ministry to figure this out? Why couldn't they have figured it out when I was younger? Maybe I would not have been such an outcast in my own denomination.
...Have these guys been reading my journals? What is a contrarian like me to latch onto when the masses line up? ( from cheaper than therapy)
I was surprised by the conference. I feel like I've gone through the ten stages of Reality Church, except with the conference, and was ready to come back with more realistic expectations. More over the next few days on some of what's happening in preparing for the coming ministry year.
Turns out Rev. Mike, Jordon, and LT may have been right after all. I'm switching back to a PC. Here's why.
I'm going to out myself and admit that I attended the Willow Leadership Summit today at a satellite location. This is a dangerous thing to admit (it's easy to Willow-bash, and even easier to conference-bash), but I was encouraged by some of what I saw and heard:
- A pastor from a church in South Africa who pastors a church in the impoverished township of Soweto, and is transforming that community against impossible odds. He buries 10-12 victims of AIDS per week.
- A suburban mother who moved her young family into the inner city of Detroit and now leads Focus: HOPE which feed tens of thousands, and works to overcome racism, poverty, and injustice.
- The New Yorker who started the Guardian Angel movement - he kind of called Hybels a wimp.
Setting all criticism aside, it's exciting to see a Willow Summit take a more international flavor and to call us to holistic ministry. Also nice to see different models of leadership on display.
I'll blog more tomorrow. (No wifi there and they are very hostile to laptops.)
When I started pastoring 14 years ago, I started in a small church. It was obvious that if we were going to last, we would have to attract people to join the church. One of my assumptions was that it was important to get people out there to come and join the church.
Our church was in a very defined community within Toronto, which allowed me to get involved with the community on boards, and to get to know people on their terms rather than expecting them to come to church. I found that this went a lot better. It's a lot harder to get people to come to church than to go out and meet them, and begin to build a relationship with them.
Still, I suspect that I spent more time trying to get people to come to church than to get church members into the world to bless the world. Even at Richview, we have focused on the attractional model of church. Build it and make it desirable enough and they will come.
One of the changes in my philosophy of ministry has been to move away from the attractional model. Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch write in The Shaping of Things to Come:
...church leaders as well as Christians in general have regarded the church as an institution to which outsiders must come in order to receive a certain product, namely, the gospel and all its associated benefits. In our view, the church should be missional rather than institutional. The church should define itself in terms of mission - to take the gospel and to incarnate the gospel within a specific cultural context.
Reggie McNeal expresses the same thought differently when he says that the wrong question is, "How can we do church better?" The better question, he says, is, "How do we de-convert from Churchianity to Christianity?"
This process wasn't a neat one for me. I probably moved away from the old attractional model without landing firmly on the missional model for some time. This is still working itself out, especially in our practice. Part of this coming year is going to be devoted to helping each person discern what shape this will take in our own lives.
The biggest change for me has been to see the use of spiritual gifts differently. I used to think that the gifts were all to be used to support the church's ministry. I now believe that many are going to exercise their gifts for ministry outside the walls of the church - coaching soccer, inviting people into their homes, serving on community boards. This too is part of the "work of the ministry."
There are more changes to talk about, which will come over the next couple of days. It's exciting, though, to recapture a vision for what a traditional church can look like when it develops a heart for going out there, building relationships with the sort of people Jesus did when he was on earth.
Amazing what you can do with $1,100 and a video camera that has to be returned in 30 days.
It's safe to say that Brian McLaren has received a good share of the criticism aimed toward the emerging church. One of the big questions has been whether that criticism is based on an accurate assessment of McLaren's theology, or whether (in part) his position has been misunderstood.
Today, McLaren himself has weighed in:
When I read these confident statements of propositional truth about me and my work, I keep wondering, “Is there someone out there posing as an imposter, pretending to represent me?”
...Many things that are being confidently asserted as objective, absolute, propositional truth about "Brian McLaren" are actually the truth about a fictional character, not about me.
I'm sure that McLaren's critics will protest, especially when it comes to some of his books that are completely nonfiction, such as a Generous Orthodoxy. Still, I am fairly confident that McLaren has been misunderstood at some key points. I hope this might be the start of some genuine dialogue that will clear up some of the misunderstanding, and highlight genuine areas of disagreement which can then be pursued in a spirit of goodwill and Olympic calm.
I try to read a little from the mammoth book The Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching every day. Today's chapter was exactly what I needed.
In preparing for the coming year, one of the main areas of preparation has been work in my soul. No matter what plans I have in place, if I'm not living close to God, experiencing all that he offers, none of my plans will accomplish anything.
Somewhere, I forget where, I read these words last week: "Whatever you want people to become, you become first. Don't work on others, work on yourself."
Dallas Willard reenforced this theme in the chapter I read today. Some excerpts:
There is no substitute for simple satisfaction in the Word of God, in the presence of God. That affects all your actions...
The preacher who does not minister in that satisfaction is on dangerous ground. Those who have experienced moral failure are those who have failed to live a deeply satisfied life in Christ, almost without exception...The surest guarantee against failure is to be so at peace and satisfied with God that when wrongdoing presents itself it isn't even interesting. That is how we stay out of temptation.
We are long on devices and programs. We have too many of them, and they get in the way. What we really need are preachers who can stand in simplicity and manifest and declare the richness of Christ in life. There isn't anything on earth that begins to compete with that for human benefit and human interest.
Preachers like that are at peace. They are not struggling to make things happen.
I encourage pastors to have substantial times every week when they do nothing but enjoy God.
Henri Nouwen said the main obstacle to love for God is service for God. Service must come out of his strength and life flowing through us into receptive lives. Take an hour, sit in a comfortable place in silence, and do nothing but rest. If you go to sleep, that's okay. We have to stop trying too hard. There may be a few pastors for whom that is not the problem, but for most of us it is.
There is a place for effort, but it never earns anything and must never take the place of God with us. Our efforts are to make room for him in our lives.
This chapter alone - just a short three pages - is worth the price of the entire book. I'll be re-reading it often.
I've already talked about some of the expectations I bring to the coming year. The reality is that it all begins here: in being so satisfied with God, that it spills over to everything else I do. Thanks to Dallas Willard for reminding me once again.
I started visiting JordonCooper.com before the homepage was a blog. My second blog post was about Jordon. He has been called the blogfather. He's also become a friend.
Jordon has suspended his blog until further notice:
Jordon's eyes and pain have gotten expotentially worse. He can't blog or do a lot of things anymore on the computer and just basic task are taking a toll. He hasn't sleep more than a couple hours a night in a month. Until he gets better, jordoncooper.com is just going to lay dormant. Thanks for reading and your prayers.Doctors don't know what is going on. He is on an urgent list to see a specialist but that is a month away. Pray for sleep and some answers from the doctors.
Please pray for Jordon.
One day I'm going to teach a pastoral theology course, and I'm going to emphasize the importance of having a philosophy of ministry. It's too confusing to make it up as you go. You end up catching fads rather than living out a thoughtful philosophy that's marked by maturity and wisdom.
The past few years have been painful ones for me. My philosophy of ministry has undergone a radical change. It's hard to change when you're in the middle of pastoring - kind of like switching cars while driving. I've suffered, and I think the church has suffered as well.
It's been hard, I'm glad I've been through this process. I realize you can't teach a philosophy of ministry in the classroom. Some things can only be learned, slowly, with the passage of time.
I have also been learning a lot about my own leadership strengths and weaknesses. Part of learning is finding out where we're weak. I had no idea about parts of who I am until very recently. As Parker Palmer says, another part of maturity is coming to embrace our weaknesses, to learn to accept them as much as our strengths. Maybe that's a different way of saying, "Be humble."
Bottom line: I feel like I have emerged from a period of switching, and I can't wait to start a new ministry year in September. In fact, I'm having a hard time waiting for things to kick off. Good thing I have to wait, because I still need to get completely ready. But it's time, and I'm excited.
I will be reporting as honestly as I can what's happening this year we get going. I'd also appreciate your prayers. I see what Richview has been and what it can be and I'm excited, and I don't want to blow the opportunity that's before me at this moment. More to come on this journey.
Friends of ours were kind enough to invite us up to their cottage Thursday night to Saturday afternoon. We caught frogs, fished, tubed, ate, walked northern lights, and generally had a great time.
The cottage dates back to the 1860s, before Canada was a nation, and was formally the eating hall for a logging company. The towers (one visible above) are now bedrooms, but were used as lookouts in the logging days. Cool to be staying in a cottage with such a history.
I think I could get used to having my own little island on Georgian Bay somewhere, my part of the Canadian Shield. What an awesome place. Thanks, Mossmans!
By TallSkinnyKiwi:
However, the point is not to argue, especially considering the congeniality of MacDonald's article and good advice to emergents, but rather give some assistance to James and help him achieve his goal of staying non-emerging. So I thought it would be a good Sunday exercise to activate my mind by giving it an assignment:
To help James MacDonald fulfill his ministry goals and keep his objective of not being emerging at the same time.
Is it possible? I think so, but it wont be easy.
A good tongue-in-cheek post - looks like James is going to need some help.
An interesting piece on the church I attended as a child - Church rejects New King James Bible:
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That we, the members of Calvary Baptist Church, Brampton, in our Annual Meeting on this day of our Lord, June 8, 1988, do hereby reject the use of the N.K.J.V. in our pulpit and church school or any other activities where the Word of God is being taught and that we reaffirm our unswerving commitment to the K.J.V. (1611).
Flickr: Explore and Flickr: Explore interesting photos from the last 24 hours
Cool new features from Flickr.
From National Post:
TORONTO (CP) - An Air France passenger jet skidded off the runway and burst into flames Tuesday while trying to land under stormy skies at Toronto's Pearson International Airport.
I still remember a plane crashing years ago in the same area when I was a boy. So far it seems that everyone has survived this time.
From Walk in the Word with Dr. James MacDonald:
Let me begin with a word of personal appreciation for the current leaders of the emerging church movement. I am deeply grateful for your courage in standing against the many shortcomings of the modern western church. Thanks for insisting that authenticity in relationship is the foundation of genuine Christian community. Thanks for standing against the formulaic/instant Gospel which fills our churches with tares and insulates the human heart from a genuine transformational encounter with the living Christ. Thanks also for daring to believe that failure is not final and that Christ yet longs for His bride to function with the health and wholeness He created it to enjoy.
In case you are wondering why my gratitude for the leaders of the emerging church does not translate into enthusiasm for their current emphasis and direction let me take a few words to explain why I am not emerging....
Thanks to Dan B. for sending me the article.
I blogged elsewhere about the latest issue of Leadership Journal, which is one of the better ones in recent memory. Two statements stood out relating to the emerging church, which I found pretty much right on:
Dieter Zander: The emerging church is really saying that the kingdom of God is bigger than the evangelical Christian world. Sometimes that is communicated in constructive ways, sometimes not. But I believe they have a healthy desire to bring together what was separated during the Modernist-Fundamentalist split...They want to reunite social justice and Scripture - the inner spiritual life and the outer social life. That is spiritual formation - allowing the gospel to transform us internally so we live differently externally.
Dallas Willard: They have a justifiable and healthy reaction against the model of programmatic church, and I think that it's good in many respects. I hope and pray that they find their way and bring us something really positive and good. That remains to be seen. The great challenge for the emerging church is determining their message. Reacting against the modern church is not a gospel. But if their message becomes living in the kingdom at the street level, then that's going to be wonderful.
I don't know if I've read a more concise summary of what drives the emerging church, what it can offer, and what work still needs to be done.
We pitched the tent in our backyard last night for a night of urban camping. It was just like the real thing once we got in the tent.
The night started with a viewing of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events on a portable DVD player with lots of popcorn, followed by a great sleep and even a thunderstorm. The kids will remember this one and it was kind of fun.
Cerulean Sanctum: Has the Christian Blogosphere Lost Its Collective Mind?:
Can we all just take a deep breath and hold it for a few seconds? Can we count to ten before we post the latest flame bait or character assassination. I'm tired of the hunt for heretics. Cerulean Sanctum gets more combined hits from people looking for heretics than any other kind of Google search. That's really sad.
Is this all we are about? I've blogged many times about this, but it's getting stupid now and I'm questioning why we Christians even blog if this is all we can do.
If the picture that some of us are presenting to the world at large looks like a bunch of fussbudget, life-haters on a perpetual witch hunt, well let me tell you we're excelling at that.
Can we stop for a while? Please? I'm pleading now. Let's stop slaying each other remotely via words. Just last week I proposed that we spend a month in prayer for anyone we disagree with before we write them up on our blogs as "Enemies of Christ." Is that an impossible request?
August is a new month. Yes, it's a hot hazy one in much of the nation, but we can bring down the temperature if we try. Can we attempt this month to write something better on our blogs than one spiritual smackdown after another?
I especially like this idea:
I have an idea. Why don't we try to reach out to some secular blogs and see if we can reciprocate some blogrolling. Better yet, why don't we try to reach out to some secular bloggers who may never have had a good relationship with anyone who takes the name of Christ and show them the love of Jesus any way we can? Can we try to turn the "dog days" of August into the "God Days" of August?