Month: January 2015

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Blog Entries The Pastorate

Writing the Ending Is Always Hard

One of the things I struggle with the most are endings. Whether it is writing endings, envisioning the ending of a project, or saying goodbye. I struggle with exit strategies. I have no problem getting started. I love a good opening story. A hearty laugh or a compelling metaphor. I set goals like a maniac. But when it comes to putting the period on the last sentence, now that’s a challenge.

When I think about it, I don’t even struggle all that much with the middle. I like the middle because it’s where the synthesis happens. I love putting this one thing and that one thing together, comparing them, seeing how a dialogue between the two creates something new. The middle is where we get our weave on. But when it comes to wrapping it up and putting a nice bow on it, that’s where I falter.

I’ve never been good at cutting things short. I have no problem writing. It’s the editing things down into word limits that is my kryptonite.

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Convergent Friends

Convergent Friends: A Handbook Part 2 – Starting Your Own Convergent Friends Worship Group

Three years ago we started a monthly convergent Friends worship gathering in the Camas/Portland Metro area. The goal of the meeting was to bring those Friends who desire to worship together, build relationships and create an open and flexible worship liturgy that can be adapted according to those who host it. Each month we rotate to a different hosting meeting. We currently have 6 meetings that host convergent Friends worship and we try to space our visits evenly. This has been a very life-giving and Spirit-filled group for many of us. My hope with this post is to help others who are discerning whether, and how, to go about starting a similar group.

These are just ideas and guidelines, not meant to be taken as a cookie-cutter. Tailor your group according to your needs, gifts and context. Feel free to borrow, remix, or flat out steal anything here for your own use. The goal is to build up the beloved community and help bring renewal among Friends.

If you are interested in knowing more about about who and what convergent Friends are you can visit part one of this series.

Here are some things to consider if you would like to start a convergent Friends worship group in your area:

Continue reading “Convergent Friends: A Handbook Part 2 – Starting Your Own Convergent Friends Worship Group”
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Convergent Friends

Convergent Friends: A Handbook – An Introduction to Convergence (Pt. 1)

In this online handbook you will find a variety of articles written by convergent Friends. This is by no means an exhaustive collection of writings but rather it is meant to function as an introduction to the concept of convergent Friends and part two of the handbook is meant to help people think about what it might mean to start a convergent Friends worship gathering. 

Begin with reading the definitions and short history below and then if you want to go deeper you’ll find a list of resources at the end of this post.

A good place to start is with Robin Mohr’s definition of convergent Friends  and then if you can find a copy, the definition from the Historical Dictionary of Friends.
Continue reading “Convergent Friends: A Handbook – An Introduction to Convergence (Pt. 1)”
Categories
Blog Entries The Pastorate

Holding Tension in Community

There are many “tensions” or differences that we run into when building and existing within community. A faith community is no different. I think Camas Friends Church excels at doing this kind of work together. Here are some of the things I have learned from the way this meeting does community with each other.

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Sermons

The Plush Silence of Heaven (Psalm 82)

This is the message I gave this past Sunday based on Psalm 82.

God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk around in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

I say, “You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you shall die like mortals, and fall like any prince.”

Rise up, O God, judge the earth; for all the nations belong to you!

(Psalms 82:1–8 NRSV)

When God Woke Up This Morning

(a fictional retelling of a day in the life of God)

It’s morning already? God rolls over and hits the alarm. Another few minutes to snooze when you are the Almighty is certainly justifiable. But finally, God cannot ignore the day’s work and so with a woolen bathrobe from Pendleton – not that God’s all about brands but this is fantastic – and a favorite pair of fuzzy slippers hand-knitted by the Holy Spirit, God strolls downstairs to fix coffee and to take in the morning news.

Events this morning are as bleak as ever.

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Blog Entries

Endorsements for my Upcoming Book

14967213197_aee60c7b2f_oHere are some endorsements from fine folks in the academic and Quaker world who have had an opportunity to read my book, A Convergent Model of Renewal: Remixing the Quaker Tradition in a Participatory Culture (2015). This is what they are saying about it:

Dr. Ryan K. Bolger, PHD. Associate Professor of Church in Contemporary Culture School of Intercultural Studies, Fuller Theological Seminary

No model of church renewal has taken the most recent changes in Western culture seriously — until now. C. Wess Daniels, in A Convergent Model of Renewal, offers a fresh and creative approach to church transformation that respects both tradition and contemporary culture while charting a clear path forward. Through this highly original proposal, Daniels articulates a brilliant synthesis of old and new by way of remix, resistance, and deep, open participation. Applicable beyond the Quaker tradition, A Convergent Model of Renewal would benefit any faith community that looks to remain rooted in their tradition while dynamically responding to the global media culture of the Twenty-first century. Highly recommended.

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Categories
Blog Entries Reviews

Books I Loved Reading In 2014

I love books and I love to read. This past year I started keeping a little better track of the books I read using a simple reading log at the back of one of my notebooks. This makes it a lot easier to not only remember the books I read, but what I actually read about!

Here are some of the highlights from last year:*

Miracle Motors by Peggy Morrison: If you haven’t read this book yet you’re missing out. It was hands down my favorite book of the year. Peggy is a top-notch storyteller, a great thinker, and a Quaker minister who rides a motorcycle through places like the rainy hills of Oregon, the desert heat of Nevada, and the filled-streets of Burundi. This is part memoir, part narrative theology, part motorcycle diaries, and part battle-cry. You will laugh, cry and be challenged by this book. If you liked Nadia-Bolz Weber’s Pastrix, then I promise you will love this.

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Categories
Quaker Teaching

Building a Participatory Pedagogy

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Given my love for teaching, and my forced time off this winter semester, a time I would typically be teaching, and the various teaching opportunities I have with Camas Friends, I have been reflecting a lot on what it means for me to be an educator. I want to share some of the key building blocks I am using as I try and build participatory pedagogy.  I see three main areas of a participatory pedagogy being: the Quaker tradition, participatory culture, and liberation theology.

All learners are learners within a tradition; apprentices participating in the learning of particular skills, dispositions, vocabulary, practices and styles of thinking and ways of constructing arguments. Therefore, I see myself as an apprentice within the Quaker tradition, seeking to educate other apprentices. Every large-scale tradition has had to develop its own modes of inquiry as it seeks embody its particular arguments in the world. For instance, the Quaker argument that “Christ has come to teach the people himself” becomes for Friends an argument that our ongoing tradition contends for. If Christ has indeed come to teach the people himself then what kind of community must we be? How must we be formed and informed? What are the practices and dispositions a community needs to participate in in order to live into the reality that Christ has come?

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Blog Entries

A “Convergent Model” Book is Coming

One of the editors from Pickwick Publications sent me the uncorrected proofs of my soon-to-be published book, “A Convergent Model of Renewal: Remixing the Quaker Tradition in  a Participatory Culture.” It is amazing how much work goes into making this happen, from the research, writing and countless hours editing, I will be glad to see this take flight in the world.

Quaker scholar, Ben Pink Dandelion wrote the foreword for the book, and Peggy Morrison, Quaker minister, storyteller and author, wrote the afterword.

For more information visit Pickwick Publications or the page for the book on my website.

If you would like to be notified when the book is published subscribe for updates here.

Categories
Sermons

Portraits of Failure, Communion of Love

Portraits of Failure

A man named Asaph is believed to be the author of the Psalm. It is about his wrestling with his own failure and the near miss of being sucked into the illusion of measuring life in relation to successes and failures.

“No doubt about it! God is good— good to good people, good to the good-hearted. But I nearly missed it, missed seeing his goodness. I was looking the other way, looking up to the people At the top, envying the wicked who have it made, Who have nothing to worry about, not a care in the whole wide world.” (Psalms 73:1–5 MESSAGE)

What I like about this Psalm is that I think it gives us a spiritual roadmap for how to come to terms with failure and how to move beyond it.

[I recognize that talking about failure, naming our failures openly is really hard to do. There is a lot of pain that resides within this conversation. I hope that the discussion today will not create more shame or stigma around failure but actually open us up some to be able to talk more freely about our own setbacks, fiascos, and failed attempts.]

To start I want to share a few failure stories with you that come from the issue of Geez Magazine called “After Failure.”

Continue reading “Portraits of Failure, Communion of Love”