Darryl's Blog
November 2005 Archives
A great post by Ochuk:
Now I know that all the burning theological issues like the Emerging Church, NT Wright, Open Theism, women's roles, the authority of the Bible, and translation philosophies, are all very interesting and entertaining topics. I have spent more words writing about them than I care to count. They are important to me as the next Christian and I have lots of opinions about them. But there comes a point where "contending for the truth" must recognize that God must "grant repentance" to those who resist it, and then gently move on if the discussion becomes stagnant. Perhaps Paul knew this best. Perhaps all his years spent as a Pharisee debating those pesky Sadducees were a lesson to him: he had searched the Scripture diligently yet didn't know the Word.
And isn't that the point of being a Christian? Aren't our lives centered on someone more foundational than our theological positions? Is there any encouragement that comes from this? Any comfort from his love? Any affection and sympathy? Is it possible that we can find a common ground, a center, a unity in Christ that allows to stand before an unbelieving world that scoffs and mocks the one we call Savior?
After our new dog destroyed part of our basement in September, we began to think about how to manage this mutt. Actually, I spent more time thinking about getting rid of the mutt, but since I was outvoted, my attention turned to coping.
Things worked out well for a while. I actually saw some income potential. After trying everything to contain Buddy, we finally found something that worked. We tied him to a tree using airplane wire. He dug, and I began to think of renting him out to people who wanted an in-ground pool. Skip the tractors, hire a dog.
So we have this big hole in our backyard. The other thing is that it is now winter, and it's getting cruel to keep him tied up outside while we're out. Even I don't want to be cruel. So we began to investigate options.
We discovered that people have opinions. We read up a little bit. But we finally decided to go to a pet behaviorist. That is after I was done mocking the idea. We went.
I had all kinds of questions. Is he Jungian? Gestalt? What did Freud have to say about dogs? But this guy is way too expensive and I am way to cheap to be that interested. So we got down to business, or at least we tried.
Things were going well until about halfway through the appointment. All of a sudden I noticed that he was repeating things, going in circles. I looked at my watch and instead of seeing the second hand swirl around, I saw dollars disappearing.
I was and am desperate, so I put up with talk of theories and I didn't say anything when I realized I could have got the same information in detail in a book, or from the one-page handout he gave us at the end. I tried to keep telling myself that I was getting good information, because I was. It is true.
I was told by someone that we could use the same principles on our children. Yes, some of them, but I'm going to stop a little bit short of spraying pheromones into the air for my children, or medicating them. For now anyway; I'll rethink the issue when they're teenagers.
I'm not sure how much further ahead we are at this point; time will tell. I do know that we are a lot poorer. And I have become one of the people I like to mock, taking their dog to a pet behaviorist. How sad is that.
This post is as pretty good a description of how I grew up:
I grew up as a conservative, separatist Baptist. (Yes, I survived.) We didn't fellowship with any other church in town. Actually, there was only one other church that we acknowledged that existed (and we really didn't care for them very much). We didn't even play basketball with other churches. We didn't 'smoke, chew, or run with girls who do'. So I feel that I kind of understand the separatist mindset. It goes a little something like this:
If we can't agree on everything; then we agree on nothing.
My brother Kevin and I were talking in England about the church where we grew up, and we agreed that there was a lot of good in that church. It featured great teaching, and people were incredibly good to our family. But this post reflects how we saw other churches around us, for the most part.
An article in the July/August issue of Modern Reformation grabbed me:
While in the past, humility was the opposite of pride, in modernity it has become the opposite of conviction...Today, being sure of something is considered a character flaw...Fundamentalism had more "certainties" than can be justified from Scripture, as if we possessed the knowledge of settlers in the City of God rather than pilgrims toward it. However, the danger is to overreact with equally arrogant assertions of uncertainty when God has clearly spoken...Do we have the humility to doubt ourselves while having the courage to witness to the truth as it has been revealed?
Statements like these are why I like Michael Horton so much. I think he strikes just the right note here. Yes, be less certain than some before us have been in certain areas, but don't confuse humility with uncertainty. You can be humble and at the same time believe something.
I think this is a good word for the emerging church, which is sometimes accused (rightly or wrongly) of being so humble that they believe nothing. Of course, this may be because they value praxis so much, and because questioning is not the same thing as doubting (a subject for a different post). But conviction and praxis can go together.
But let me challenge the non-emerging types for a minute.
If the opposite of humility is not uncertainty, it must mean that we can be certain and humble at the same time. I guess humility would show itself in the way we treat others and view ourselves.
I get frustrated with discussions like the imonk one because some people, frankly, are just rude. When challenged, they sometimes imply that if they acted with more grace, they would be compromising the truth.
Why not embrace solid conviction with a graciousness and gentleness with others? Why do truth and obnoxiousness have to go together?
My systematic theology professor, someone who is still a mentor, personifies this. I don't think anybody would call him wishy-washy, but he is always careful to present those with opposing views in the best possible light. He is always gracious, yet forthright, when disagreeing with them. Another example of someone who does this is Tim Challies. May their tribe increase.
May emerging types be certain when they should be, and may non-emerging types be gracious even when they are sure they are right.
We had a great time at the FRWY.ca Resonate gathering last night. My only complaint was that there were too many good people to talk to all at once. Cool to meet Erin, Dan, Tim, Rob Auld, Jared, Daniel. Adam, and others, as well as to reconnect with Vun, Pernell, and Jordon.
More pictures here. Fortunately this didn't happen again, but this did.
We did a spontaneous baptism this morning. It wasn't completely spontaneous: we had it planned since the summer. We just didn't tell anybody.
This morning I spoke on what it means to follow Christ, and then I invited people to respond by being baptized.
I waited in the foyer. I had a few words planned in case nobody came; that happens. Two people (Eva and Bryan) soon joined me. We quickly got changed, and celebrated together.
It was one of the best baptisms I have been a part of. I got the idea from James, and I like it.
You may have missed the controversy taking place this week between Centeri0n and Internet Monk, with others (like Pyromaniac) also participating.
At issue is a confessional essay written by Internet Monk. It's now been taken down, but is available upon request. In reaction, centuri0n has written about some of his concerns. Others have joined in as well.
Fair enough. When you write something, it's fair game for criticism. I really don't have any problem with critics taking issue with something like the IM's essay.
What's harder to take are comments like this: "iMonk: You are a fraud." Or this: "I pray God saves his soul."
The hardest thing to do is to argue about issues but, in the process, to show kindness to people. This is especially the case when the person is closely related to the issue.
We are all built differently, and some of us have more than an appetite for conflict than others. I just don't know that it's a bad thing to try to show the fruit of the Spirit in our reaction to issues, as far as it relates to people.
Somehow this is seen as weakness or postmodernism by some people.
So take issue with what Internet Monk has written. But think pretty carefully before you call somebody a fraud or judge their spiritual condition just because you disagree with them. As Anne Lamott has said, "You know that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people that you do."
Or to paraphrase Paul: "I plead with Centeri0n and I plead with iMonk to be of the same mind in the Lord."
An article in ChristianWeek written about FRWY.ca:
HAMILTON, ON—An emerging church community of the Salvation Army opened its new building in downtown Hamilton on October 30. But it is not your average church space.FRWY.ca (pronounced “freeway”) Café is a 7,000-square-foot converted bank building. The non-profit café is designed to offer coffee, culture and community.
“When we planted a church, the original idea was to start by building a community and then develop a café,” explains Pernell Goodyear, pastor and ethos-shaper. “We wanted to create a place that is neutral ground, public space. We asked what it would take to create a place that is normal, that would reach people in our culture.”
I don't know, it really seems that whoever wrote that story has a good eye for news, or at least good taste in friends.
I love what they're doing. FRWY.ca gets a mention in The Great Giveaway, which I'm currently reading, and it also sounds like it's possibly in line with Organic Church, which I'm trying to get. Exciting to see some churches trying to create a third place, avoiding the problem of ever getting stuck behind the church building's walls.
The former prime minister of Canada sues Jordon Cooper. Or so he should. Juicy details here.
According to Google Analytics, three out of five visitors to this site are American. If you are one of my American visitors, I hope you live in a warm part of the States (it's cold here!) and I wish you a very blessed Thanksgiving.
I'm not a big fan of winter. I recently told my mother, who chose to settle in Canada from South Africa, "It's your fault!" I don't know why, out of all the countries in the world, she chose a cold one. She must have arrived in the middle of summer and thought that it seemed just right.
I realize this is not a weighty topic, but there is something that bothers me every year. Even though we've only received a small dusting of snow, and it's supposed to be 17 degrees Celsius next Monday, I've already started to think about it, and I have to get it off my chest.
Why do people shovel their snow onto the road?
I saw somebody raking leaves onto the road yesterday. It's like they're thinking, "I know, let's put these leaves where cars drive." The same thing happens every snowfall. Somebody decides that the driveway is a bad place for snow, their car needing it and all. So they push the snow into the middle of the road where the rest of us are driving.
I am pleading with you, if this is your practice, to see the error of your ways and never do it again.
I feel so much better having got this off my chest that I won't even get started on clerks who ask me for proof of my identity when using my credit card to buy the lamest things. Is there a big problem with people stealing credit cards to buy $6 worth of scalloped potatoes and Diet Coke? I hope if a thief ever steals my credit card they have a little more imagination than that. But I've ranted enough for today I think.
Tonight we joined a couple of thousand university students at the Ricoh Coliseum for Passion Toronto. Nobody in my family is a university student, but between us it almost balanced out so it was okay.
I know a lot of prayer went into this event. It was clear that it wasn't just an American group breezing in for a concert. They did their homework. Louie Giglio quoted from a sermon that was preached at Toronto's centenary celebration, which took place in the very same location some eighty years earlier. I need to get the exact quote somehow, but it was on the role that Toronto could play spiritually not just in Canada, but globally.
I looked around and got excited about what could happen if God sparked something in that group, if it became more than an event or a concert.
We're home early because we took the kids but I'm praying for what's still going on at the Coliseum.
As previously advertised, there is a Resonate party taking place this Sunday night at FRWY. DJ Cliff will provide music and the coffee bar will be open, and we can chat via wifi or even in person if we so choose. Sunday at 8:00 p.m. - see you there.
As Charlene hinted, I had a bad day on Sunday. (Disclaimer: my son thinks stupid is bad word. I live with the language police.)
During the morning service, we prayed for the 200 million believers who are experiencing persecution around the world. I know prayer is what we need to be doing, but somehow it's hard to walk away from the service with a sense of satisfaction. I want to do more. It's hard to talk about girls being beheaded and then go home to enjoy Sunday lunch.
That afternoon, I went home and raked some leaves. The thing about leaves is that you can tell if they've been raked or not. There is a pile at the side of the street, and the grass is now clear and leaves aren't blowing in the house all the time.
That's quite unlike church. You can preach and pray about the persecuted church, but at the end the congregation still looks the same and those being persecuted are, as far as I know, still being persecuted. There are no piles and there is no clear evidence that anything has changed. Sometimes there is evidence to the contrary.
I wish you could see people grow. Often it's messy and hidden and you're not even sure it's happening. But then again I've never been good at gardening either. I plant a seed and I can't help but dig it up to see if it's growing yet.
Sometimes you just have to patiently wait and do your part while crying out to God. And sometimes that is enough.
I don't want my tombstone to read, "He did tolerable stuff for tolerable people because they paid him." (David Maister)
Critics often say the emerging church knows what it's against more than what it's for. This just may be true, although perhaps it's just a sign that many are still early in the process, and are still closer to where the journey began than where it will end (if it ever does end).
But the days of the emerging church being against rather than for may be numbered, if they were ever here. I am encountering more people and resources that are moving toward living the Gospel in community and on mission - in short, moving toward rediscovering what it means to be the church.
Maybe I'm just encouraged because I sat in a room with hundreds of church planters yesterday and sensed that there is new life out there.
One of the books that is giving me hope is David E. Fitch's The Great Giveaway.
Fitch writes:
The task of this book then is twofold: (1) to examine the ways we have "given away" being the church to modernity by allowing its influence to individualize, universalize, syncretize, and commodify the tasks, truths, and even the very salvation we have been given as people of God through Jesus Christ, and (2) to offer practices to evangelicals by which we may receive back being the church, the people of God ruled by Jesus as Lord in resistance to such modern influences.
In other words, this book is both diagnosis and prescription. It works toward reinvigorating "an ecclesiology for our times," and a robust one at that. I like what I've read so far.
There are signs of life out there, and all kinds of thinking practitioners are getting in on the action. Just maybe we're starting to see signs of the life that comes on the other side of death, a moving toward something rather than away. I am encouraged and I'm glad to be alive to see this happening.
A picture found at my Dad's last week and scanned by my brother. This is my sister and I, probably around 1973 I'm guessing.
I admit it. I've been sucked into the Christian celebrity culture. I woke up this morning and chose to follow a visiting Christian superstar around Toronto as he made his appearances.
Well, sort of. Rick McKinley is a friend and a fellow student in the D.Min. program. He is the Pastor Rick of Don Miller fame, from Imago Dei Community in Portland. He always swore to me that he would never come to Canada, but everyone has his price and evidently Rick's was lower than any of us thought.
Rick made the trek to 100 Huntley Street, which ironically keeps bringing in subversive guests. There we bumped into Erwin McManus. Rick taught a workshop in the afternoon. It was fun to see behind the curtain to see what goes on at a conference like Mosaic.
Rick taught a good session on church and culture and redemptive windows. A good day but my days as a groupie may be numbered. Although the food really is good.
Time once again for the High Park Alternative School Dream Auction. It's a fun way to do some Christmas shopping and also support a good school. My daughter is an auctioneer. Looks like they have some good items for sale.
Take a look. You don't even have to live locally to bid. Some cool items such as your own personal assistant for eight hours, relief from your pet for a week, not to mention lots of good food and gift certificates.
I'm back home. I have been for a while, but I was a bit foggy yesterday. I have this jet lag thing figured out going to England, but it still hits me coming back this way. Tip for traveling east: avoid the red eye flights if you can help it.
Thanks for all your prayers for us. We had a good visit with Dad. Kevin and I laughed a lot, and Dad seems pretty happy overall. It's not an ideal situation for him at all. He was found collapsed in the courtyard late one night, according to a neighbor, and it takes him 15 minutes to climb a flight of stairs. It's hard to leave him like that, but we also don't have a lot of options either. He's in good health for an 84-year-old man who lives alone, and would be just fine if he would accept the help that is available to him.
It's funny. For years we prayed that God would take away his bitterness. This prayer has now mostly been answered. We just never figured it would happen through dementia. I guess you have to be careful what you pray for.
Still no signs of spiritual openness.
Kevin and I had a great time together. We now have an extensive collection of quotes, spoken by Dad and by us, that will keep us laughing for some time. It's pretty rare to be able to spend a week with a brother, and I'm lucky that it's happened twice now. Also great to be welcomed home by family. I joked that I'm going to hire somebody on the Heathrow side to hold out a sign with our names and cheer when we arrive.
Other random notes:
- We had two of the worst landings I've experienced. We hit the ground hard when we arrived at Heathrow. On Sunday, we landed in Toronto in a windstorm. I've never before heard the crew breathlessly remind everyone where the emergency exits are seconds before landing, but we made it.
- I know you're not supposed to rave about British food, but it's come a long way from bangers and mashed potatoes and fish and chips. We enjoyed some amazing Indian food and also had a great (and affordable) steak dinner at Sticky Fingers in London.
- I love England. I want to live there one day.
- It's sad but the strangers I end up meeting and chatting up all end up being middle aged. Not sure how this happened since there was a day I used to tend to meet younger people. I'll have to look in the mirror one day and see if anything has changed.
- Photos are here.
It's good to be home.
Dad just minutes ago. I love this picture. It brings out his sense of humor.
Probably the last picture of this trip. We leave for the airport tomorrow morning.
I'm spending Remembrance Day in an area that was regularly bombed during the war. Just down the road is a house that was completely destroyed in a bombing raid. Later we're in Canterbury which was almost completely flattened during the war. We're not far from Dover which was the headquarters for the Dunkirk evacuation.
All that to say that it's not hard to imagine how terrible the war was and how much it cost. It's hard not to remember and be thankful.
It's been busy since arriving here in Birchington:
- We threw out over 35 large bags of clutter yesterday. About half was garbage. The other half is bound for the charity shops.
- Two Kentish Maids arrived this morning and spent 4.5 hours cleaning. It was hard for Dad, but the good news is that he had forgotten they were here an hour later. (We had a choice of cleaning services but how could I not pick the one called Kentish Maids?)
- We failed to get Dad to the doctor but I did pick up some new counseling skills from the pastor. ("He's 84. What do you expect?" etc.)
- We found all kinds of neat things today, including some of his war records, old passports and citizenship cards, and even a family tree. We found some other stuff we got rid of but now we are wishing we had taken some pictures first.
- We have a gas meter exchange arranged for the morning, and a few other jobs in the morning. Then we hope to get off to Canterbury in the afternoon and we're aiming to do something in London the day after.
It's sure helped having Kevin here this time. Not sure I want to be 84 years old and living alone if I can help it.
Pernell Goodyear, Jordon Cooper, and I are holding a little party at the FRWY Cafe on Sunday, November 27th at 8:00 p.m. The FRWY Cafe is located at 333 King Street East in Hamilton, Ontario. Please join us.
Last time I stayed in a hotel in London, it was a dump. I found out later that it was rated number 746 out of 973 hotels in London. No wonder.
A little research on Trip Advisor led me to the Crown Moran Hotel this time, rated number 32 in London, and for only a little more than Easy Hotel would have cost at the last minute.
It's slightly out of the way but is worth it for what you get. Great rooms and breakfast is included - much better than the $70 the breakfast would have cost us if we had just walked in. Not that we would have had the breakfast at that price.
We are leaving here for my Dad's shortly. More later.
Update: I'll be posting pictures here.
I was explaining to my family last night that I think I've found us a hotel tonight where we can have twin beds instead of double. Christina said, "Yeah, I guess that's better than being bumper to bumper with your brother."
Indeed.
Imagine washing your passport. No big deal. It was in your back pocket and you forgot about it. It's a little bit wrinkled, but it's still legible. It's not like it was lost or stolen or even that it fell in the toilet.
It doesn't seem like a big deal, but really, it is.
- You may be denied boarding just like the drunks you see on Airline.
- You may be sent to a passport office, where they will verify that yes, your passport is damaged and cannot be used.
- They may send you to a lawyer to verify that the passport is damaged.
- They may warn you that they are opening up a security file on your case and that you may be denied a passport if you ever launder it again.
The good news is that it will be an ordeal, and you'll have to jump through some hoops, but you can get a passport in a few hours if you pay the passport fee and about $70 extra.
I feel it's my duty to tell you this could happen to you. If we don't stay vigilant against laundered passports, the terrorists have already won. Don't let this happen to you. Especially if you are my brother and you are traveling with me.
We make a second attempt at flying in the morning.
You've seen my son's artwork. Now it's time for a pencil drawing by Christina.
Anyone who makes comments like last time saying that this picture resembles me will face severe consequences.
A couple of posts ago, Jacob wrote on my lack of criticism of the emerging church:
If my memory is correct, perhaps a few passing comments. Darryl, I think you're in a great position to warn about some of this "flaky theology" in a more specific and direct way.(just a little challenge bud)
There certainly is a role for warning against flaky theology, and there certainly is a lot out there of all types. Here are a few reasons why I don't tend to do this a lot:
On Monday, my brother Kevin and I are bound for England for just less than a week. My Dad is now 84, suffers from dementia, and lives alone. I try to check in on him a couple of times a year and deal with some of his business.
This week's trip is fairly light. We are getting his gas meter exchanged so he has some heat for the winter, his flat cleaned, and we're also going to try to get him to the doctor for a check-up. There are usually a couple of surprises as well, so who knows how the week will shape up.
I am grateful that Kevin is able to join me. My last trip was a particularly brutal one. I came down with a case of shingles while there and seemed to find my Dad's confusion more difficult than usual. It's usually a lot more tolerable and even fun with someone else there.
When we arrive in London Monday night after traveling during the day - no more red-eye for me if I can help it - I have us booked at the new Easy Hotel in London, where windows are extra and the only color available is orange. I stayed in the same area a couple of times ago and the accommodation can't be any worse. I look forward to taking some pictures. I like the idea of Easy Hotel.
If you think of my wife, please pray for her while I'm away. She's got a pretty heavy load this week. Not much fun being single mother for a week.
I hope to blog from England if I can get dial-up to work.
I don't write about it a lot, but I've been seeing some other women. Charlene is cool with it. I had a date with one of them tonight.
My daughter Christina's always liked horses. A couple of months ago, I bought tickets to the Royal Horse Show. Tonight was the night. Lots of fun with apple dumplings, the RCMP musical ride, and of course horse jumping.
She's not a bad date at all. Not a cheap date, but not a bad date.
John Frye begins a provocative new series on Jesus: the (first) emergent pastor:
In this series I will endeavor to make the case that if Jesus were alive on earth today, he would have coffee with Brian McLaren and talk "God," before he would with D.A. Carson. He'd discuss the treasure and use of the Bible with Walter Bruggemann before he'd sit down with John McArthur. He'd have in-depth discussions with Richard Rohr, SJ, about mystery and wonder before he'd chat about platitudenous stories with Max Lucado. Jesus would bear hug Jim Wallis long before he'd get the "tour" of Focus on the Family. He would probably visit every AIDS clinic before he'd visit most of our churches.
You see, Jesus was the first emergent pastor. His calculated reference to "new wineskins" was his way of saying, "Don't you get it? The world is changing big time. And it's not just me that is doing it, but Herod and his cronies, the zealots and their violence, the Sadducees and their comfort, the Pharisees and their religion, the Romans and their power and the Greeks and their way of thinking--all things things are like a Len Sweet 'tsunami' and we are no longer able to live 'in the good old days.' "
Them's fighting words. Looking forward to the series.
This always happens. I'm preaching on loving your enemies this week. Not a big deal since I really don't have any real enemies. No real big grudges, life is good.
Then this week I'm smacked in the face with a few situations where I have to actually practice what I'm preaching about this week. I hate that.
If you're wondering whether I'm talking about you, why yes I am. Just kidding. It's nobody who reads this blog.
Maybe next week I'll preach on an area where I actually want to do the homework, like the danger of having too much leisure time or something.
I spent the day listening to Mike Frost, coauthor of The Shaping of Things to Come. He's in Peterborough speaking to some pastors and youth workers.
Mike's been a strong influence on me. A few of pastor friends of mine are currently working through Shaping. His coauthor, Alan Hirsch, also commented on this site before as I wrestled with some of the issues raised in the book.
I've posted the notes online (here and also in PDF). Here's a summary of what he talked about: