theological reflections - Gathering In Light (Page 3)

Hey Man Slow Down: Silence and Noise – Sharing Space with Technology III

I've been carrying on for the past week about slowing down in an age of technology; whether this is something we really need to do, why and how we might go about doing it are all questions I am looking at. In the last article I talked about

Blog Entries

Peace Parade or Protest March?

There was a church this Sunday, so I heard, that had on its billboard outside the title to this year’s Palm Sunday message: Peace Parade or Protest March???? Now granted we go to a fairly radical??? church if when you hear the word Christian you think, Pat Robertson, George

Featured

Hey Man Slow Down: Multitasking and Issues in Simplicity II

Two weeks back we received our weekly issue of Time Magazine; the cover instantly caught my eyes. It's a picture I almost wanted to find myself wrapped up in. The title of the article asks a pertinent question for today's technologically immersed generation, “Are Kids Too

Featured

9rules Religion Community Ping Homily on Courage

Shawn over at LO-FI Tribe has put up a Ping Homily??? for March. He writes a short homily and then asks other to join in on writing about that theme. This month he writes about Courage and I am struck by his brief yet powerful message, exclaiming that we know

Featured

Evangelicalism and Subcultures: Part V

I’ve been writing on Evangelicalism over the past few weeks partially as a theological exercise and partially to work out a my own critiques and vision for this movement. I would not consider myself a spokesperson for the movement, nor do I want to be, but I do recognize

Featured

Critiques and Possibilities: Evangelicalism Part IV

This is the continuation of a larger discussion I am working on, here is part I, part II, and part III. Spiritually Transformed Life #5 – The spiritually transformed life has become for many the end all be all of Christian existence. Of course again there is nothing unbiblical about a

Featured

Critiques and Possibilities: Evangelicalism Part III

I’ve been working on a series of posts concerning Evangelicalism and when I get to it Quakerism. Visit my “Series on Evangelicalism” under the Featured page for the rest of the posts on this topic. In the last post I explained two different definitions which arise, the sociological standpoint

Featured

What Evangelicalism is: Part II

I have a disclaimer to make, I’ve been working on these posts for the past week, and as of last night I’ve had to rewrite and change course for this discussion. This is largely due to a conversation that I had with two good friends James Pitts and

Featured

Reflections on Evangelicalism Part I

Reflection on the State of Evangelicalism At Fuller we obviously talk a lot about American Culture, fundamentalism’s effects on American Evangelicalism and American Politics and the plight of Christianity in general. These tend to be radically diverse conversations, represented by a variety of voices within the student body. What

Featured

quakers, sacraments and practices

AJ Schwanz has once again written a thoughtful post about Quakers ideas of the sacraments. She’s been reading Bolger’s book and this of course brings up many questions about the use of sacraments for old and new faith communities. Many Emerging Churches do away with the wafer and

Uncategorized

Christmas gifts and letters

With all the fuss I made earlier about gifts on Christmas I must say that I still like to get them. In fact Emily and I had a number of long talks about Christmas gifts, traditions, and theological implications concerning these things (and what we want to and don’t

Uncategorized

on our way back home

Tomorrow morning at about 6:30 our good friend, Emily Page is taking us to the Burbank airport (heaven compared to LA international airport) to fly back to the good ol state of Ohio. Heading back home is always a double-edged sword for me. As most normal people I love

Uncategorized

Cristes maese and the American Soul

So today Emily and I worked my last day of work for about 10 days. We are ready for a break, who isn’t really. It seems like our world is built around a “dog eat dog” mentality – this is nothing new, the trouble is, is when it carries over

Featured

Silence II

So I have to consider that I am at times hard on myself, while at other times way too easy. But in either case my last post about silence might have been a bit modernistic. It was as though to say that reading, listening to music, and participating in other

Uncategorized

Silence Would Be Better

Today has been one of those days where there is so much to be said, all of it sitting on the tip of my tongue and yet none of it able to fall forth on the page. I’ve had such a hard time thinking lately, like things are cloudy,

Uncategorized

Who Goes There? or Knowing the Betrayer…

The pedophilia – recently we got into a discussion about sexual harassment, pedophilia, etc in our church threaded discussion email. A friend brought up the point that our lovely Mennonite church doesn’t have much put in place to protect children from suspected pedophiles. Here is the first problem – we have

Blog Entries

The Temptation to Stand for Nothing

“the temptation to stand for nothing” America is full of uber-evangelical-legalistic-rightwinged Christians that I along with my many post-evangelical colleagues have tried to forge a “third way” so to speak. What I mean is that I can be a ‘Christian’ (I am using the term loosely here) that is either

Church in Mission

On the City – Reflections on the Poor and Skid Row

I must say that these conversations as of late have been very stimulating, all this talk about living and not living in places of perceived danger and felt danger. I have some last words to say before I head out on a two-week hiatus in a couple days. I am

Church in Mission

Fourth of July in Skid Row

I found, at least for myself, one of the best places to spend a fourth of July Church service at – an African-American Church located in the middle of the hopeless and Notorious Skid Row of Los Angeles. Emily and I went to Central City Community Church of the Nazarene (CCCN)

Blog Entries

Inner Change Journal #4

Journal #4 July 1, 2004 Today, I began to have that camp feeling arriving with everyone around 9:15, groggy, people feeling more comfortable, and more personal with one another. Today was a day to think about getting personal with the city. Two things stand out our talks about the