gathering in light

Lent is upon us and I’m working out what it means for me to be awake and aware of Christ’s Light not just within but all around. One of the things that keeps me from this is the constant speed at which I move from thing to thing. The speed is a symptom of the pile of projects and commitments I have taken on. For instance, the other day we were at our Home Owner’s Association meeting and while we were in the process of forming our newly appointed board members someone asked “who would like to be on the board?” My hand instinctively went up. I felt like I was watching a movie of myself where the film version of me couldn’t see what I the viewer saw. I watched myself raise my hand, and felt powerless to stop it. Yelling at the screen “no!!!!” no one heard or even cared. This kind of compulsive yes has gotten me roped into more things than I care to recount. » Read the rest of this entry «

I had a conversation yesterday that reminded me of something I hadn’t written about. Going through grad school I was pretty sure that I would end up planting a church or just teaching Quaker theology or a little of both. The thought of working in an established congregation wasn’t on my list of possibilities, I’d written that off a long time ago. My reasoning went: it would be much better to start my own thing from the bottom up as surely the would Spirit led me to do. (One part of the problem is that so many 31 year men from seminary want to do this and noticing that I started question my motives.) Then I had a class with Mark Lau Branson who (in that very pacifist way) beat into us the importance and treasure of an established congregation. » Read the rest of this entry «

Ryan, my doctoral adviser, sent this to me this morning, and I confess I had a good chuckle over the fact that all three of my PhD committee members are considered false teachers:

“It’s common to see the promotion of false teachers from the Emerging Church Movement such as N.T. Wright, John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, Ryan Bolger, Wilbert Shenk, Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Erwin McManus, Dan Kimball, Scot McKnight, Elizabeth O’Connor, Nancey Murphy, Leonard Sweet, Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Donald Miller and Phyllis Tickle. And we wonder why the church is so messed up!” (quoted here http://bit.ly/d1ETAw)

Note, most of these people are Anabaptists, Mennonites and/or Quakers, and a few others are at least sympathetic to the peace churches.  The obvious question for me now besides where do I go from here, is what Ryan wrote in the email: How can a tree planted in bad soil produce anything good? I have no idea, but I guess it will take some consideration. » Read the rest of this entry «

I’m hoping some day preaching becomes the kind fluid movement for me that other people in their professions seem to acquire with their skills of necessity. You know, where the person is so keyed in that it doesn’t even look like they’re doing what they are doing? Where the professor is so well-versed in pedagogy that it is more of a reflex than an intentional response. Now, I’ve seen a few preachers who had this kind of golden-mouth style to speaking and teaching the Scriptures (most of them being women). These preachers incorporated the deep experience of the truth they share along side the the ability to say the profound in a way that seemed so simple you wonder why you hadn’t thought of it like that before. For now, every time I stand in front of people to ‘preach’ I do so with a self-awareness, almost an awkwardness, that makes it difficult to communicate.  Where the hearer may say, “wow, you said something so simple and yet, somehow I feel like I understand it less now.” » Read the rest of this entry «