The year was 1986 when I opened up my favorite childhood toy – it was the Transformer Optimus Prime. I opened up the next box and it was Megatron. Then my relatives showed up and I got Bumblebee, Starscream, Shockwave (the Decepticon cassette player) and Mirage (he was the race car who could become invisible). Those were the days.  But before you think I was an extremely spoiled kid, here’s a good time to insert that my birthday is Christmas Eve (it’s pretty much the cleft palate of birthdays but to date, there is no corrective surgery). Double presents was the only redeeming thing about this day. Anyway, my mom had called my aunts and they coordinated the presents. it was the most organized middle-eastern execution of any idea to date. I’m not kidding.

Christmas seemed to suck each year after that. Because my parents are terrible liars, I knew the truth about Santa from an early age. So when you stop enjoying toys and you can’t eat candy canes because your dad is a dentist, Christmas becomes a real long Church Cantata service that you are required to go to on your birthday. Being a smart kid growing up in the Back to the Future era, I started requesting a DeLorean time machine to take me back to 1986.

Throughout my teen years, Christmas became among the many times that I really tried to connect with my faith. Combined with being blessed with a great family, it really was my favorite time of year although it had changed so much. Then in college, I enjoyed it even more. Being a religion major, I was gaining a better understanding of its theological significance but it was more because of the family event we created.

The flip side was that I became kinda snobby about all the superficial extras that surrounded Christmas. The tacky lights, drunk Santas, the commercialization, I wanted to kick an elf. I even stopped listening to Christmas music. I knew everyone had Christmas all wrong, I just didn’t know how wrong I had it too.

I enter Christmas time differently these days. For starters, I now call it Advent. And while I can list quite a number of things that I love about the meaning of our Savior’s coming, these days I am most moved by Jesus’ humanity. Not just that he would humble himself and become a defenseless baby, but that he would become human to begin with. Don’t think for a moment that the Sovereign Creator becoming an infant is lost on me, I have two children under the age of two sleeping upstairs and the youngest is about to turn 8 weeks. Some of us could never imagine leaving our part of the country and living in a state say, like West Virginia. Some of us could never live abroad. Imagine leaving heaven to live on this rock of dirt over a population that would painfully reject you and only a few would truly love you and you knew this the whole time.

Here is where the humanity really moves me and I know that I will not be able to adequately describe this. but here’s my best shot.  I cannot imagine the anxiety that Jesus walked around with. Each day moving closer to his death, each day experiencing the trials and ordeals of human life. It’s no wonder that he routinely prays and weeps over Jerusalem and cries over Lazarus. He understands all sides of the pain. This brings me to my favorite part of the celebration. Every so often, you get the pleasure of being the person who brings good news. You get to be the one to encourage people, touch people, maybe even be a part of what brings joy to others. I like to imagine the feeling he had of knowing that he was the embodiment of hope, the hope for you and me, the hope for all of creation. This is among the many gifts of Christmas – that he would come and dwell among us – that He would want to be our Emmanuel.

What I’ve Been Enjoying:

1. Our new baby Dylan. Susan is recovering well, her parents have been extremely helpful, and our one year old Nathan is enjoying being a big brother most of the time.  I won’t get into anything deep like the previous post (thansk for the loving words by the way) but I’m still pretty high on life right now.  My observations on Dylan so far are: 1. Light brown/reddish hair?  Holy recessive genes Batman, didn’t see that coming.  2. He doesn’t cry as much as the first one did (we still love you, just pointing out observations).  Seriously, though it’s only been 2 weeks (and too early to tell), Dylan seems to be a fairly peaceful kid.  3. He likes me.  Of course he loves Susan but everyone does.  And he has to love her, she feeds him.  The dad on the other hand, has always been optional.  If it weren’t for my athleticism (Nathan is mesmerized by how far I can throw those toy balls) and baby-bathing skills, I’m not sure if my relationship with Nathan would be as close as it is.  Dylan seems to be calmed by my voice and my charm.  So far, so good.

2. Yankees win the World Series!  What can I say – it’s a good year when your favorite baseball team wins the world series the week after a son is born.  Because I’m a good youth pastor, I cancelled sr. high youth group so that we could watch Game 6 together.  I’m so glad I did that.  Community is gained by going through storms together, studying Scripture, interceding for one another, serving on mission trips and cleaning up food pantries.  Community is also created in watching the Yanks bring home their 27th championship.

Got to enjoy the World Series parade too.  I went with my favorite student Jake ;-) and favorite church member, Dave. We made it to about 2-3 blocks from city hall and stopped to watch on this screen with a couple thousand people.  It was great to be out in the sunny, cool fall day with my fellow brothers and sisters in the Yankees.

What I’ve Been Reading -

For school -

- Religious No More by Mark Baker.  While I wasn’t crazy about the beginning of it, I loved the middle and conclusion.  We have book debates set up for class and my group has to defend the major themes of it.  It’s a good book to defend, I’m looking forward to it.

- A couple of commentaries on Galatians. One by Richard Hays (New Interpreters) and another by Martin Luther.  Hays isfantastic and I find it to be very helpful in seeing new things in Paul’s work and thought.  I am not enjoying Luther’s as much because for one, be raised an evangelical, I find it to be very familiar and two, he doesn’t really engage the text from a commentator’s perspective; he preaches it.  I don’t want sound trite in that and I regard Luther as an extremely important figure in the history of the church but his commentary isn’t as incredible ;-)

- The Justice Project edited by Brian McLaren.  It’s a book about condensing God’s goodness into a few basic sound bytes with Scripture verses, easy to memorize that sit on a train … and if you get stuck, you can consult your bracelet … oh wait, that’s how we have diluted the gospel and the ruined idea of evangelism.  I just started this book but I am among the many who see justice as an ignored or marginalized aspect in the mission of the church.  The Scriptures are very emphatic on the role that justice needs to play in the life of the believer.  Looking forward to reading and using the ideas of the book.  Lastly, I think our “evangelism” would make a bit more sense if the church was interested in pursuing justice.  More to say on that one day.

What I’ve Been Listening to:

- Homebrewed Christianity podcast with Harvey Cox and Phillip Clayton.  I need to listen to it again but what I heard I really liked.  Unfortunately I was listening at the gym and I found myself hating how fatigued I was started tuning out the stimulating conversation.  Soon after I started playing Coldplay (because it  just makes you feel better).

- Relevant Magazine Podcast – always excellent, always funny, and probably the best thing about Orlando.

- Mars Hill Audio Journal – Before there were podcasts, this was an audio journal hosted by Ken Myers (who used to work for NPR).  He interviews academics. It’s nerdy, it’s good, and it’s the closest I plan on getting to Stanley Fish and Scott Moore (not that there’s anything wrong with them). I listened to issue 97 and particularly enjoyed the interview with Scott Moore who talked about how our patriotism may conflict with our faith and with artist-writer Makoto Fujimura whose name comes up in countless conversations.

- New Sufjan Stevens – BQE.  Still need to see the documentary.  It’s a soundtrack (think symphony not Garden State) about a road (think the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, not the Parkway) by one of the most talented people of our era (think Sufjan, not Zach Braff ;-)

What I’ve Been Watching on Television - Now that the baseball season is over, it’s just football on Sundays and Mondays and Office and Community on Thursdays.  Don’t recommend any new shows for me, this will be a welcomed time until Lost begins.

What I’m Looking Forward to:

1. David Crowder Band concert at the Bowery Ballroom this week

2. Second Mile service.  It will be our second.  It will focus on the topic and holiday of Thanksgiving, suffering, community, and how does a Christian reconcile all of this. Can a Christian be thankful when so many are suffering?  How does a Christian be thankful if they are void of community?  And would Jesus have eaten turkey on the last Thursday of November?  If so, with who, where, and with or without gravy?These are important matters for an important time.

3. Seminary Retreat with Brian McLaren.  Reason no. 167 why you should consider attending Biblical Seminary

Born 10.26 @ 10.51 am
8lbs. 6oz. 20in.
Susan is doing great after her c-section.
Big brother Nathan is excited (at least for now ;-)
And all is good.
Thanks for your prayers and kindness.

Sometimes the book reviews I see on blogs leave me a little frustrated if they don’t contain enough opinion. Like the ones that say “review” but only give the Amazon summary from Publisher’s Weekly.   Then there are the posts that are so long that you think you might as well just get the book or bookmark the post and treat it as a cliff notes version of it.  There’s a couple other things that annoy me and I’m sure I do things that annoy others but here’s what I know:

I am not a scholar so I will not critique pretending to be one.  We’ve been trained by our seminaries and under-graduate programs to be more critical thinking than we actually are. But here in the big world of the internet, let’s be careful to who we think we are.  So, I’m not a book critic.  I’m a guy, offering an opinion that may or may not help you.

I will try to make them brief (or at least not to thick if they are not brief).

I will create context and stereotypes to keep them brief (this will frustrate some).  Be warned, I know they may not always be accurate.

I will do my best to be honest.

I will probably change this post several times.

Tom Sine – Where Is the Church Headed and What’s Our Response 

 

You probably should walk into this seminary with Tom Sine in a ready mode.  If you are having a rough time this may push you further over the edge –lol.  However,  depending on what you are upset about (like if you are upset with how the moms in your youth group are treating you) it may snap you out of it because you have new problems.

 

He’ll be giving this seminar on Monday morning and I highly recommend it if you are reading this and here in Pittsburgh..  There are a lot of notes below but here’s a bit of summary.  Things are changing, politically, socially, economically, etc.  Different generations are generations are interested in different things and different things are going to interest and un-interest them.  So, we will not be able to live as our parents lived – that track is gone. 

You may know by now that we younger Generation X’ers and Millennials, will be the first generation to make less income as our Boommer parents.  Generally we will not be living in some of the homes we grew up in.   Tom anticipated that the next two years will be difficult economically and only two years would be optimistic. 

 

(Though not at the moment), The industrial growth of China and India will raise the cost of oil to $300/barrel.  This will affect many things of commuter culture.  Even the idea of commuter culture or regional church will be fading out.  He also said on a side note that we won’t be building too many mega churches in the next 20 years. 

 

As youth workers or as people in our churches, we need to prepare people for change.  We should be teaching people stewardship, budgeting, lifestyle, warn against traps of materialism, greed, purpose.  The bigger theme was teaching our churches God’s dream as opposed to the American Dream. 

 

If you are interested, check out his book called the New Conspirators.

 

Walked in a little late but here are some of the notes I took

 

Crisis of Foresight

Long range planning in a time warp

Forecast how your community will look 5-10 years.

Who’s moving into the community?

 

Taking the future seriously in turbulent times

Leading with foresight

Anticipating new challenges

Creating new responses.

 

Housing markets

Examining the attitudes and behaviors of jr. highers as indicators ….

Culture shift

Waking up on a ship of fools headed into an economic hurricane. 

 

Future of the rich and super rich.

Future of middle class

Future of the global poor

Future of new majority world

Future of the planet

 

Life stewardship practices the democrization  of culture

Taste of wealthy lifestyle always dangled in front of middle class.

Future of the church & mission response

 

Shrinking church  - losing 20’s & 30’s year olds.

Retiring boomers mission funding crisis.

 

Join the Conversation.

 

Conversation 2

What are your creative ways to respond to new challenges:

In our lives?

In our churches?

In youth ministries?

 

We need to find ways to collaborate with others. – We need to get the church out of the building.

 

Good live of God versus the Good life of the American dream. 

Help people do budgeting.

 

Leading with discernment

Crisis of vision

Joining the new conspirators in taking the culture seriously

Engaging and critiquing modern and post-modern culture. 

 

Checking out high statues/extreme cool”

What does this have to do with following Jesus?

Markets of McWorld defining for people everywhere what is “good life & better future”

 

No 1 reason why Christina college students are not headed into missions is their parents are forbidding it.

            Because of the American dream

·      But I think also because boomer parents know to not believe in the church.

·      They are the ones on our trustee, elders, missions commission meetings cutting the funding to our missionaries.  Of course parents do not want their children to live as vulnerable like this. 

·      Become an accountant or a banker or a pharmacist so you can support yourself and then volunteer.

·      We can give our hearts away to God and the stranger, but not the vulnerability of our pockets.

 

A warning form the matrix – a reality being pull down over our head

A vision of the good life becoming the norm for our global village

 

Joining the new conspirators in taking the kingdom seriously

What are God’s purpose for a people and world?

Is. 65:17-19, 2:1-4, 25:6-9, 58:5-7. 35:1-7. 9:2-7

 

The good life cannot be obtained by pursuing anything in this world.

Only in the paradox of Christ can we find the good life 

            The good life of God is the life being given away. 

 

The major evangelism is the call to significance. 

 

Our worship music should reflect on how Jesus wants to change the world not

 

Joining Shane Claiborne in reimagining the kingdom,

Another world is possible

Another world is necessary

Another world is already here!

In the risen Christ, in communities, in shalom

 

Joining the new conspirators in living into creating into serving into collaborating into

 

Conversation 3

What is your response to:

The critique of the global mall in shaping our nations of the global life

In the suggestion that the good life of God is not found in seeking life but in losing life in service to God and others?

 

Joining the new conspirators in ….

 

Arrod mckenna – peace three community – this generation doe snot need more slick entrainment  - they long for space where their deepest questions can be discussed

 

One mustard seed a tat ime.

 

New Cons – calling us to authentic whole-life faith

Family loving on purpose through hospitality

Emerging leaders in the UK living on purpose by working only 30 hrs/wk to free up 20 hrs for mission

Nurturing a liturgy of life. 

 

Creating new counter-cultural communties of the kingdom

Small groups with a mission

Proximity communities with a mission

Resident communities with a mission

Temescal co-op, community, Oakland

Turba house Raleigh- durham US

Mustard Seed House/celtic monastic village

Creating new sustainable communities to both embody the kingdom of reduce costs

 

Creating new approaches to worship

Inviting eh young:

            To create new expressions of church

            To create a worship that connects profane culture and ancient liturgies

To create new missional worship

 

Creating US birthing centers fo new expressions

Forge -  Melbourne

Fresh expressions, UK

Launch Toronto

Reinventing youth ministry to launch the young

Urging all churches to invite the imagination and innovation fof teens 20- & 30- year olds.

 

Creating new celebrations of that world that is already here

Joining the new conspirators in partying the kingdom 24/7

Celebrating the world that is already here with Babetts’s Feast.