Thursday, February 26

Rudy weighs in on the Passion...

Rudy Carrasco blogs about The Passion:


"IS THE PASSION FOR NON-BELIEVERS?: I've questioned the assertion that The Passion is a wonderful event to take an unsaved friend to watch. After seeing it yesterday, that thought is confirmed. It's not that the movie will not work with people who do not hold the Christian faith. It's that it's a deeply meditative movie. I woke up this morning reflecting on the words of Jesus that were interspersed throughout the movie. The first thing out of my mouth was the quote from Isaiah that opens the film: "By his stripes we are healed." That's how I greeted my wife, who is a believer like I am. It was a special moment as we considered how we could more authentically follow Christ, who chose this way of suffering as a means of redeeming the world."


Read the rest of the post here>>>


posted by Charlie Wear | 5:44 PM | |


Wednesday, February 25

Spencer Burke.com

There is a rumor that Spencer is blogging over at Spencer Burke.com.

posted by Jordon | 8:22 AM | |


Tuesday, February 24

Jason Evans is ranting again...

Next-Wave editor Jason Evans really got wound up, I am going to quote his entire post:


""In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity." I think this quote is attributed to St. Augustine, not totally sure on that, but either way people in the "emerging" church scene need to take this to heart. Some friends have been linking me to the ongoing blog rantings. The 'back-and-forth' on non-essentials. (I'm a little behind on this one so spare me.) Seems like splitting hairs, tearing words apart to me.

Here's the bottom line: you will not convince anyone unless how you conduct your life backs up your language. It doesn't matter how long you rant, how good you spin it. We are a generation that is tired of gimmicks and sales pitches. We want to see the reality of it, the everyday living of it (yes, the high's and the low's). If you are not serious about engaging in that, than we aren't interested in your negativity. "What particular instances or subjects are you talking about?" I'm not stooping to that. If you really want to know what I'm about on these petty matters you can come see how I live and discover it for yourself. I'm not interested in these issues. That's why I chose the road I did - because I thought it was amongst a community of people ready to move beyond that, to get to the essentials of following Jesus.

For goodness sake, I'm just getting sick of the bitterness that surrounds this so called 'movement' (oh, sorry, we changed our minds on the 'movement' thing last month). I'm fairly certain that we were told somewhere that we would be known by our love. That seems to be fairly antithetical of where we are at some times. It's more like you'll know us by our negative, knit-picking and indeciviness. For a season, we all undergo a transition, a time when we "unpackage," as Spencer puts it, how we believe. But you have to move on. You can't sit there pulling everything apart for ever, attempting to draw attention to your spiritual temper tantrum.

I long to hear stories of wonder and joy, of passion and love, of falling down and being picked back up. But please no more of the continual unhappy banter that seems to always be taking place. This doesn't apply to everyone. But to many it does. Heck, it has even applyed to myself. But we need to move forward in faith. Find some joy in finding our way into God's Story. I'm just getting tired of all the complaining. I might take it serious if half the people moaning were making an even meager attempt at making a dent in the enemies kingdom. I remember Dallas Willard saying in a talk I listened to once that what you profess and what you believe are often two different things in the Christian community. What you believe is defined by how you live... what you profess may just be empty words. It's time to engage, to reconstruct, to believe and profess something holistically, to live abundantly. If you would like to sit on the sidelines and scream, we're not interested. So, here's my request: would the people in the balcony please shut the [blank] up and get their [tails] on the stage of God's Story please. I say that in love. Honestly."


I expurgated a couple of words because the last time I posted some harsh language, I got a bunch of guff about it...Can you hear what he is saying? Can you hear the heart and passion behind his words? Wow, dude, get all "John the Baptist" all over us, huh? Sweet...


posted by Charlie Wear | 9:14 PM | |

so not right...

yet they make me laugh. they probably shouldn't. but they do anyway.

Which Circle?

they probably wouldn't be so funny if they weren't so painfully accurate.

posted by miah | 6:25 PM | |


Sunday, February 22

Mel Gibson and Tammy Fae Messner together, huh?

David Taylor posts a thought provoking article entitled, Mel, this is Tammy Faye. She'll be your guide today. From the article:


"I don't know if I will see the movie [Mel Gibson's the Passion of the Christ]. I'm not much of a moviegoer anymore, at least not since the price of a box of Milk Duds surpassed the price of a double feature in my younger days.

Part of me says I don't need to see the movie any more than I would need to see a movie made about my parents. I already know them. Why do I need a movie to tell me who they are?

Of course, if I were one of Ronald and Nancy Reagan's children, I might want to see the movie made about them to ensure it was reasonably accurate. So I might go see "The Passion" to see if the brouhaha about assigning guilt for Jesus' death and the implications of that for today was really justified. But something tells me I already know."


Read the rest here>>>, a lot to digest and think about...


posted by Charlie Wear | 7:39 PM | |


Friday, February 20

The really simple future of the web

From the BBC.
The idea - let's call it RSS - comes from a bit of work done in the 1990s at Netscape and elsewhere. The point of it was that key bits of websites, such as headlines, could be sent out in a bare form, stripped of all fancy graphics and layouts. These could then be incorporated easily into other websites.
So what is it about this idea which gets people so excited?
The most compelling use of RSS is that it lets users read dozens of websites, all on the same page. The sites can be scanned in seconds rather than having to be laboriously loaded individually.

posted by Jordon | 9:19 AM | |


Thursday, February 19

Ashes to Alvin by Anne Lamott

February 1997 entry in Salon
My father's ashes have poured through my fingers like sand. So have my friend Pammy's. I poured their ashes off sailboats out on San Francisco Bay. I poured my father's into the water near Angel Island, late at night, but I was very drunk. And I tossed a handful of Pammy's into the water way out past the Golden Gate Bridge during the day, with her husband and family, when I had been sober several years. And the second time I was able to see, because it was daytime and I was sober, the deeply contradictory nature of ashes, that they are both so heavy and so light.

They're impossible to let go of entirely. They stick to things, to your fingers, your sweater. I licked my friend's ashes off my hand, to taste them, to taste her, to taste what was left after all that was clean and alive had been consumed, burnt away. They tasted metallic, and they blew every which way. We tried to strew them off the side of a boat, romantically, with seals barking from the rocks on shore, under a true blue sky, but they would not cooperate. They rarely will. It's frustrating if you are hoping to have a happy ending, or at least a little closure, a movie moment when you toss them into the air and they flutter and disperse. But they don't. They cling, they haunt. They get in your hair, in your eyes, in your clothes.
I found it via One House.

posted by Jordon | 6:28 PM | |


Wednesday, February 18

an open letter to religious leaders...

Money, Sex and Power

Crap.
It’s about time for someone to be honest about what’s going on around us. It’s an epidemic and most of us are one sneeze away from being infected. Money, sex and power. Three temptations that are literally destroying the ministry for many talented and earnest leaders. They are subtle, infectious and deadly. And they’re coming to a friend near you.

Money.
The influence of money on the ministry is astounding. I have known pastors who have literally convinced themselves that God is calling them away to a new start that coincidentally has financial gain built in. Parishioners insist that their pastors drive well (3 of my best friends in the ministry all got new minivans for Christmas last year), live well and dress well. The inertia towards middle class is nothing short of cultic. I know few clergy who live below middle class. Name two pastors you know that rent apartments, drive older cars, and are broke. New pastors and church planters don’t count. Welcome to suburbia.

Sex.
It’s true…. You are only one malicious rumor from selling cars for a living. Later when you are vindicated you will bask in the fact that you are... from the car lot.
The temptations are powerful and the examples of the effects are unfortunately numerous. Sex is wrecking the ministry. Pastors constantly put themselves in compromising situations, flirt with staff and parishioners and naively assume that it won’t happen to them.
They counsel the opposite sex who wonder why their spouce doesn’t understand them like their pastor. They touch the opposite sex too much, harmlessly flirt too much, care too much. They wrongfully assume that they have put protective measures in place.
And it’s not just pastors who are getting accused. Spouses are often primary targets for the needy in your church. No one can be more empathetic than your pretty wife or gentle husband. Target locked and loaded.

Power.
Why are you in the ministry?
Success can be quite the aphrodisiac. People love you. You speak well. You’re at the top of your game…Probably time to quit.

Somewhere along the line you forgot about the poor people, the unpopular and the ones who won’t help your career. You started to like the show, the attention and the accolades. You got asked to talk to important groups, people considered your visits an event. Time to quit.

Time to quit. Get out. You lost your heart and this turned into a job. You started concentrating on shallow B.S. and you are dishonoring the friend of the lowly and the oppressed. Time to go.

Money, and power. They want your love. They are the harlots that parade themselves in the recesses of your darkness and they are starting to claim your soul. You can pretend they haven’t seduced you yet but like all sluts they only go where they are invited. Kick them out.

I’m feeling convicted.

posted by Scott | 12:17 AM | |


Saturday, February 14

This book is the worst I have ever read - Jordon Cooper, err, I mean Anonymous User from Saskatoon

From the New York Times
Close observers of Amazon.com noticed something peculiar this week: the company's Canadian site had suddenly revealed the identities of thousands of people who had anonymously posted book reviews on the United States site under signatures like "a reader from New York."

The weeklong glitch, which Amazon fixed after outed reviewers complained, provided a rare glimpse at how writers and readers are wielding the online reviews as a tool to promote or pan a book — when they think no one is watching.

John Rechy, author of the best-selling 1963 novel "City of Night" and winner of the PEN-USA West lifetime achievement award, is one of several prominent authors who have apparently pseudonymously written themselves five-star reviews, Amazon's highest rating. Mr. Rechy, who laughed about it when approached, sees it as a means to survival when online stars mean sales.

"That anybody is allowed to come in and anonymously trash a book to me is absurd," said Mr. Rechy, who, having been caught, freely admitted to praising his new book, "The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens," on Amazon under the signature "a reader from Chicago." "How to strike back? Just go in and rebut every single one of them."

Mr. Rechy is in good company. Walt Whitman and Anthony Burgess both famously reviewed their own books under assumed names. But several modern-day writers said the Internet, where anyone from your mother to your ex-agent can anonymously broadcast an opinion of your work, has created a more urgent need for self-defense.

Under Amazon's system, any user may submit a review without publicly providing any personal information (or evidence of having read the book). The posting of real names on the Canadian site was for many a reminder that anonymity on the Internet is seldom a sure thing.

"It was an unfortunate error," said Patricia Smith, an Amazon spokeswoman. "We'll examine whatever happened and make sure it won't happen again."

But even with reviewer privacy restored, many people say Amazon's pages have turned into what one writer called "a rhetorical war," where friends and family members are regularly corralled to write glowing reviews and each negative one is scrutinized for the digital fingerprints of known enemies.
WIth some friends coming out with books lately this is kind of funny. I always sign my reviews and as far as I know, they haven't had any bad reviews but it would make things awkward if people left some bad reviews.

posted by Jordon | 4:25 PM | |


Friday, February 13

loaded

Yes, I know how loaded this statement will be... and by loaded I don't mean it's drunk... and by drunk I mean... nevermind.

E-merge:ing Con//ver-sat\\ion
Is anyone else getting a little tired of de:contruct(ing) and ready to build something?

I know the joy and excitement and need to deconstruct the church/ministry/life/world-view etc. Hell, it's my favorite pastime! But I'm ready to start building something... to subvert the system... to be a virus that infects the Church with truth & love... to stand up, or stand in, or stand down...

Maybe it's just my issue.
God, fix me so you can use me... and grab anyone else who might be where I'm at.

posted by dydimustk | 12:24 AM | |


Thursday, February 12

On Emerging and Hanging with Brian McLaren....

So I am reading Alan Creech's stuff and he refers to this post by Jimmy [Shaw] about the whole emerging thing...so I check it out. The article is good, although I am now more convinced then ever that we have become a community of word-dissecters. Someone starts using a term, and the dictionary definition is not enough, oh no...we have to start having seminars on what the word means, yikes! But while I am reading the post, I glance at the previous post, and man, does it make me laugh. It was all about hanging with Brian McLaren, funny stuff! Wanted to email Jimmy Shaw but couldn't find a link, I am going to add him to my blogroll.

posted by Charlie Wear | 6:27 PM | |

From Sojourners

Share the Valentine's Love and Honor African American History: Advocate for Fair Trade Certified Chocolate and Cocoa!
Chocolate is a number one Valentine's gift, but it's heartbreaking for most cocoa producers and their families. Cocoa farms are home to widespread child labor and even child slavery, especially in West Africa where most cocoa comes from.
The US chocolate industry has developed a plan of action but it keeps producers too poor to cover labor or basic needs. The REAL SOLUTION is FAIR TRADE, which gives cocoa farmers the minimum price they need to send their kids to school, pay their workers, and live with dignity. M&M/Mars, the world's biggest chocolate company, has refused to sell Fair Trade Certified chocolate despite a outcry of requests from chocolate lovers of all ages.
This Valentine's Day and African American History Month, join Sojourners, in partnership with Global Exchange, as we advocate for Fair Trade chocolate and cocoa. Tell M&M/Mars to have a heart and sell Fair Trade chocolate NOW!
Click here to take action today!


posted by Jordon | 3:52 PM | |


Wednesday, February 11

Amazing article on how talent is evaluated in baseball and I imagine other major league sports

link :: The issues go much deeper than baseball or hockey and into how change is brought to institutions and how they make decisions.

posted by Jordon | 8:57 PM | |

Blog Service Pinger

Ping a list of sites that track updated blogs.

posted by Jordon | 12:35 PM | |

Finally, a way we can all be ordained

If I only had $29.95

posted by miah | 10:12 AM | |


Saturday, February 7

Spiritual Formation?

I have been wrestling with "Spiritual Formation."

What is it? Can it be accomplished? How?

Spiritual practices seem so empty at times.

I have been led to a beginning question. One that is more perplexing than the first. If we are to gain any knowledge or experience of spiritual formation maybe we should contemplate this question first. Maybe it holds the key.

What is the soul?

There, I asked it aloud. Now it must be dealt with.

What if the soul is not something we have but it is more something we are? "It is the very life-pulse within us, that which makes us alive...As such it has two functions:

First of all, it is the principle of energy. Life is energy. There is only one body that does not have any energy or tension within it, a dead one. The soul is what gives life. Inside us it, lies the fire, the eros, the energy that drives us...

But the soul does more than merely give energy. It is also the adhesive that holds us together, the principle of integration and individuation within us. The soul not only makes us alive, it also makes us one." The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality, Ronald Rolheiser.

What if spiritual formation was the nurturing of the fire that burns within us--the energy and tension that defines "alive?" What if it's about finding a way for peace and tension to live in harmony?

What if spiritual formation is less about spiritual practices and more about nurturing that which keeps us from falling apart? What if it is about nurturing live giving relationships/communities?

What if spiritual formation was more about living with Christ than practicing Christ?

Lord, help me to be alive and soulful...

posted by joe | 5:12 AM | |


Friday, February 6

Sermon on the LA freeway....

Via Rudy Carrasco comes Christy Lambert's musings regarding the Sermon on the Mount, here is some of it:

"I've been contemplating the contradictions inherent in trying to live simply in America - said the girl drinking a $3.25 chai latte while wearing thrift store jeans with a hole in the left knee. I have both a gift for acquiring free furniture and an expensive education that taught me to use the words "bifurcation", "social construction" and "metanarrative" in a sentence, which is the kind of thing that makes you a hit at parties. I get the $13 haircut at Supercuts, and when I smile, you can see the result of three years of pricey orthodontia. I have no television, but a whole lot of CD's. I wrote out this blog entry in a coffee shop with pen and paper because I needed to get out of my apartment, and I refuse to buy a laptop when I have a perfectly functional desktop in my bedroom. I have a guitar that I haven't touched in six months, but didn't give to a youth center that wants to provide music lesson for low-income kids because I might want to use the six chords that I know at some point in the future. I give money every month to several organizations, both Christian and not, that I think are doing good work and live within my means, so I have no debt. That's not the whole story though. While I had a fellowship that paid for grad school, I got through my undergraduate years at a private university on a combination of scholarships, jobs, and very generous family contributions, so I didn't have to take out any loans...."

Read the rest here>>>


posted by Charlie Wear | 6:39 PM | |

The Road Home

Church bus provides shelter, sustenance and spiritual guidance to the homeless

posted by Jordon | 4:40 PM | |


Wednesday, February 4

churches and the poor

I had a startling conversation with a pastor at a conference recently. He was from a church of significant girth and status, replete with many staff and visions of grandeur. So I asked him what his church was doing for the poor. And I pressed him. Hard. The answer was – nothing. Oh sure they gave out a Christmas hamper or two and for all I know he donated to Unicef on Halloween; the usual deal.
Since that eventful conversation I have put the question to many other churches, maybe even your church. Usually the results are predictable. Here’s my conclusion – churches really don’t care about the poor. Jesus cared about the poor. In fact he was quite adamant that one of the hallmarks of holistic faith would be a passion for the lowly, the oppressed, the hurting and… the poor. He went as far as to say that taking care of such would be an act of worship to God. "As much as you do to the least of these, you do to me." He said. "True faith", Paul said, was to "take care of widows and orphans." So why is it then that churches have huge budgets, great facilities, wonderful programs, but no poor? You don’t see significant dollars given, there are few or no poor in the pew. Where did we go wrong?
The poor are messy. They are needy. They don’t tend to invest your gift. Many aren’t looking for work. They can smell. If you give them money they may squander it or worse – buy cigarettes. They don’t usually live in "the burbs".
He said to me, "we give something…" churches and individuals are notorious for giving a little something to appease their conscience. My take on this – it’s worse than giving nothing at all. It objectifies the needy into projects without beginning to care for the real person. It enables us to totally disregard true compassion and it actually increases the problem.
How much does your church do for the poor?
I think it’s time that someone called a lie a lie. It’s time we let the cat out of the bag, admit that the emperor has no clothes and owned up to the fact that we have become predominately a white, affluent ministry that is largely self-serving. Most churches I have known are too stinking lazy and selfish to do anything of real value for the people Christ came to seek and save. We love to spout off how committed we are; but try to get people to sell their car and give the money away. Most of us, myself included, are really selfish pigs.
Let’s be godly. Let’s be the church of Christ. Let’s put our money where our mouth is and spend some real time and real coin in real ministry for once. Let’s stop debating the issue and critiquing the fonts. Let’s change the church and change the world.

posted by Scott | 9:48 PM | |

Cheap Grace?

why is the church so afraid of grace?

we know nothing is more important, but we're afraid to use it.
It's like we're gonna run out or something.
It's like we're afraid that God's gonna change His mind.

"But, if we focus so much on God's unconditional love, then we'll give people the license to run around sinning since they know God will forgive them, and that's just cheap grace."
What about a cheap sacrifice?

Tonight, I saw grace being taught dangerously. And I'm talking about the good kind of dangerous. I heard kid's told that Jesus does and will love them no matter what... and my heart burned within me. I watched and listened as a group of kids discovered God's amazing grace... His unending love... His foolish infatuation.

Thank you Lord for loving us, even when we're too stupid to realize it.

posted by dydimustk | 7:53 PM | |

Ignoring the poor

A friend of mine writes of this experience at a recent mega-conference she was at
A last thought. I don't have an answer to this one, just an observation. There was a pedway between several of the hotels and the Shaw Conference Center. Here and there along the pedway were guys playing guitars with their cases open, guys panhandling, selling Street News magazines, etc. Picture streams of Christians flowing by them, ignoring them, on their way to turn their heart's doorknobs for God. I did see a few people giving money and preaching/chastising at the same time. So, what was the answer? Is there one, or several? I have no idea - it just all seemed pretty false, all of us walking past, ignoring the poor. And I wasn't any better. Pretty sad.

posted by Jordon | 3:21 PM | |



The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a buildling filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it. - Dee Hock

posted by Jordon | 3:18 PM | |


Tuesday, February 3

Low Resolution

This guy has some amazing photos. RSS here. Link via Daniel Miller.

posted by Jordon | 8:37 PM | |

Brian McLaren :: The Three Postmodernisms: A short explanation

From Brian McLaren's website

posted by Jordon | 1:44 PM | |

Churchless Faith mp3's

From Jason Clark's weblog,
We have posted MP3s from the Emergent gathering with Alan Jamieson, on "Churchless Faith" They are free, and in the resource section, http://resources.emergent-uk.org under the name "Alan Jamieson". If you have problems downloading it is because too many people are hitting the download, so try later. The current files are very big, and we will post smaller files later in the week.

posted by Jordon | 1:40 PM | |

The final version of TheOoze RSS feed

I would like to introduce you all to TheOoze's new ATOM RSS feed. It is a syndication format that makes it easy to get the content from TheOoze blog in a RSS reader or even on another website (although I would check with Spencer before syndicating this blog on your site). Online newsreaders like Bloglines make it easy to track hundreds of websites in the time you can surf five. Instead of you going to the blogs or sites, it brings them to you. Like a lot of news aggregators, Bloglines is free and easy to use. The difference is that Bloglines supports ATOM while others do not. You can also make the collection of RSS feeds public if you want. I included mine here to give you an idea of how easy it is to surf via RSS.

posted by Jordon | 12:20 PM | |

on my walk




posted by spencer | 12:14 PM | |


Monday, February 2

Feb 04 issue of Next-Wave is online

Hi all,
The February issue of Next-Wave has been posted by editor Jason Evans...check it out.

posted by Charlie Wear | 10:01 PM | |


Sunday, February 1

my kids








posted by spencer | 5:12 PM | |