Phyllis Tickle & The Great Emergence

Phyllis Tickle is a name that you should know.  She wrote a couple of books and her new book the Great Emergence.  There will also be a conference by that name December 5 & 6 in Memphis.  If you go, register here through Adam Cleveland’s blog, pomomusings, to help send him for free. 

If you’re like me, and you are either not rich enough to buy every book that is suggested on a blog, you can check out some of her writing here that she did for belief net during Lent.

To hear the kindness in her voice, listen to this podcast when she was interviewed by Tony Jones.  After listening to this it, I have renewed my infatuation with wanting to host a theology discussion group that meets occasionally in some tavern/pub.  In some ways, it’s the emergent cohort.  But for those not interested in the emergent conversation (you don’t have to be and that’s part of what makes it emergent and a conversation), I’d love to do this in some future season of life.

from pomomusings.com

Reflecting on Why I am Teaching on "Unity"

Still trying to figure out how/what to blog.  I think all I’ve figured out is the “when”.  The answer is, “right after I hit the ‘post’ button.” (lame, I know.  That’s why I’m in student min).

Supposedly blogging is about writing whatever you feel like talking about today.  But with such great blogs out there, it’s hard to enter the conversation.  Still, the interent can afford one more lame blog and so feel free to start one.  No, no,  I mean, happy reading.

Today, I’m airing out some of my thoughts on tonight’s lesson on unity, why I am teaching it, what I hope to avoid and what I hope to land on. 

Given my context, my interests, our recent history, and present circumstances, here’s some of the why.

1.  We had a number of influential seniors graduate this past May.  This year’s class is less than half their number, their personalities are more introverted, and my impression is that they “don’t feel like seniors” (whatever that means). 

2.  On the flip side, we have a good amount of new 9th graders.  Almost enough that I feel we have a “young youth group” in relation to high school age.  Also factor in the beginning of the school year (which in some ways is the toughest time in the inner dynamics), their insecurities, and the potential snobbery of the upperclassmen.  

3.  Like most youth groups, we are susceptible too clichés.  Not like “Mean Girls or “Gossip Girl” (not even like “Golden Girls”)  but we talk about community and many times we have a culture in our student ministry that not only impairs community but does the opposite and encourages clichés.  That’s a longer story. 

As it worked out, the first seminary class this fall is about relational community.  Reading Organic Community by Joe Myers has been a great blessing to me.  I wished I had listened to Charles Zimmerman and Todd Hiestand before. 

Tonight we’ll be covering the second part of “Our Unity.  What It Is and Why We Need You”.  Among communicating the Scriptures, keeping their attention, setting up small groups (which will happen in tandem with the lesson.  Which every time I see this at a conference, I love it.  Every time I try it, I regret it.), etc.  I also want to  avoid overboarding on our unity that we make ourselves even more inward focused.  Judging from our few visitors (although last week we had quite a few), we seem to have the inward thing already focused.  Nor do I want to go on the other side of being so outward focused that we lose our identity and our bonds.  Truthfully, I don’t see a risk of that actually happening anytime soon but I think that message but be a turn-off, reject the message, abandon their faith, become drug addicts and fundamentalists and thus be, counter-productive.  

I joked on my twitter that I don’t want to use “missional unity” because I was fasting from using that adjective.  I am tired of it but it is a great adjective.  

If Sarah Palin Were My Mom

Saw this on Marko’s site:

 

Sarah Palin has picked out an All-American set of names for her children. There’s TrackTrigBristolWillow, andPiper.

Ever wonder, What would your name would be if Sarah Palin was your mother? Well now you can find out!

    

Tim, if you were born to Sarah Palin, your name would be:

Jeep Pike Palin

That’s not bad.  I like Jeeps.  My brother has one.  

And I used to like Starbuck’s Pike Place coffee the first 5 months of drinking it.  (Now I like Caribou. Kidding,I don’t believe in leaving the “Church” and two, we don’t have Caribou in the northeast, )  

Well, no offense Sarah, I’m glad you’re not mom.

Hey, find out what your name would have been and let me know.  

It’s a sneaky way for you to get used to commenting on here.  

So diabolical.

Navigating Through National Politics from our pews

Though I thought twice about posting this but it is a blog, not a church newsletter so here it is.   Great article last month from Brian McLaren on Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics blog.  The article is entitled, “Mal-Engagement, Disengagement, and Wise Engagement” and here are the lines that made me nod my head in agreement:

“f people are saying they’re tired of pulpits and churches becoming the field for proxy battles between Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, I couldn’t agree more. And if they’re saying that pastors and other religious leaders should try to throw their weight around in the political arena, bypassing normal debate and discourse by making theological pronouncements, again, I couldn’t agree more.

But if they’re saying, “Let’s go back to the good old days where in church we talked about ‘us and Jesus’ and nothing more,” I couldn’t disagree more. To talk about “us and Jesus” alone is unfaithful to Jesus, who linked love for God with love for neighbor. To exclude from our circle of concern the well-being of neighbor and enemy means that we aren’t following Jesus’ way, but some other way under “Christian camouflage.”

I grew up in those “good old days,” and I can tell you they weren’t so good. It wasn’t good when racism and concern for the planet were excluded from consideration because they were “social and political matters.” It wasn’t good when poverty couldn’t be addressed directly or in a sustained way – in spite of the fact that the Bible says so much about it – because it was “political” and “social.” It wasn’t good when we couldn’t talk about peacemaking in a violent world because to do so was “too political.  For more …”

If you are having a wonderful day, I’d suggest skipping the comments.  The lack of unity and love is disheartening.  But if it’s a normal day for you, then go right ahead.

 

Studying Ecclesiastes

Tomorrow for Sunday School, we will beginning a study on the book of Ecclesiastes.  

Like so many brothers and sisters who flirt with feeling jaded and frustrated when reading the Bible, the book of Ecclesiastes is as comforting to us as the Psalms are to others.

“Everything is meaningless!” Hyperbole alert:  I think if you asked some in this generation, they would tell you that they are the most cynical, the most angry, the least hopeful, and in fact are the creators of despair. Please also check out their other creations, sex, drugs, rock’n roll, among others.

If I knew I wouldn’t be burned at the stake by fundamentalists, I would create an abridged Bible (and if I knew I wouldn’t be burned at the step of the church organ with propane and left-over bulletins I would).   It’s genesis would be Ecclesiastes.  It would be followed by  John, Romans, some epistles, and flashback to Genesis, etc.  That sounds like more of a seeker’s Bible to me.

We’ll be using IBS’s “The Search”.  Which is a Ecclesiastes in pamphlet form void of the text references in the TNIV language.  (Very inexpensive too.  Check out the link).

Among my hopes, I want students to know that they are not the first to feel despair and have to reconcile that with their love for God.  I want them to enjoy the struggle, embrace the tension, appreciate the paradox, etc.  It’s ok to talk like that.  We didn’t start the fire you know.  

 

In need of "Renaissance"

Our senior high student ministry, Fusion, kicked off this past Wednesday night. Most days, I love what I do, and I had been looking forward to this night for the last half of the summer.

Let me tell you a youth pastor story that isn’t true. After spending a solid 10 minutes or so (but each moment was prayerful), God spoke to me and said, “Tim, my favorite son, I want you to tell my students that I love slightly less then you because you’re such a good Christian and youth pastor, that they must experience a reawakening.”

In my best King James heavenly language, I spoketh forth and replied, “Yea Lord, thy servant heareth thee.” I went to explain that I was ready to share a series on Jesus being awesome. I had a whole bunch of passages from Paul that I was ready to use. (Didn’t really want to use the Gospels since it gets soo complicated and who wants to study the text?  Don’t want them me or them to think too much, you know).  Anyway, I digress.

I guess I write that because I have an extra 5 minutes to share my angst with my impression of how youth ministry has been done years ago (and still is in some places). Indeed, I did pray, meditate, etc. on what we should discuss this fall. Most of our students have been raised in the church. Many of them feel lonely in their faith while walking through their high schools, they complain of feeling somewhat sheltered, and generally, they know God is good but admit to being frustrated from the clichés, the need for discipline, their failure, their youth pastor, their parents, the self-righteous kids on the other couch, and about 248 other teen-age related reasons. I feel we as believers, as a Church, specifically ours in Montvale, are in need of a season of “Renaissance”. Though I typically conjure up feminine and other related ideas of that time period, after some time, I’ve come to appreciate it’s meanings, “a new beginning” and “rebirth” (among a few). Yes, I need a “renaissance”.

My hope is that others connect to this too.

pssst – Christian shirts don't work

At the Revelation Generation music festival, I stopped by one of those Christian t-shirts tables.  Yeah, not sure I’m going to be able to stop once I start.  

First, I believe in righteous anger but I cannot tolerate the argument that this is a form of it.  Please comment/email me/contact me if you are the guy/girl who came to know Christ from reading someone’s Christian t-shirt.  I’m still looking for that story, “I was walking through the mall and this shirt read, “You think it’s hot here?  God.” and I asked the guy, “Dude, what must I do to be saved?”.  

Second, they only rally Christian  (Todd Hiestand has an interesting post regarding preaching) and offend the skeptical, the hurting, the marginalized and the normal.  

Third, though they’ve been out for years and years, the”attitude” shirts are too much of an imitation.  In a world without consequences, I would open up my own Holyster store so I could create these type Christian shirts.  They’d pretty much be the same type of shirts as we have now, but I’d market them like Abercrombie.  I’d employ Amy Grant’s strategy of “being sexy for Jesus” (Rolling Stone, June, 6, 1985) and have good-looking models with six pack abs holding their shirts that read, “Virginity is HOT”.  Maybe I’d even produce a teen coming to age movie, entitled, “He’s All That”.  I’d have the ‘t’s look like crosses.  Unsuspecting audiences would come expecting American Pie and we’d hit em up with uhhh … well … I’d have to pray about it but it would be a solid bait and switch which some consider to be great evangelism.  

Fourth, they’re usually lame.  

I present to you exhibit A:

You might ask, “What does this even mean?”

“Well, I’m glad you asked.  Please read the back of my shirt that has some Scripture and an explanation how porn “poses” as love but it isn’t really.  You see?  Now go and sin no more”.  Is that how you would actually speak to someone?  If so, you might want to rethink some of your social skills.

Here’s one that I thought was pretty good ….

until I read the back:

Should have just left the back blank.  The front actually has the potential to start meaningful conversation.  

Then there’s the pro-life shirts.  First, please know that I have very strong views against abortion.   However, if you have ever spoken to someone you love and respect (even if they are a stranger), some rhetoric, regardless of how clever it may be, is not helpful.

For example:

Could you imagine a pro-choicer having a shirt that says, “It’s a fetus – get over it!”???  I’d go nuts.  

What if someone walked around with an anti-capital punishment t-shirt that had a picture of a woman strapped to the electric chair with the fifth commandment over top of it, “Thou Shalt Not Kill!”.  I may not go nuts but I think that shirt would be distasteful.

I want to be careful and not say, “We shouldn’t wear these shirts” because those type of statements, among many things, sound legalistic to me.  Perhaps we can put some different thought into what we wear (and don’t wear).

 

Giants Home Opener, Tailgating, & Community

A good friend called and told me he had tickets to the Giants opener against the Redskins.  As a loyal 49er fan praying for Alex Smith and thankful for Frank Gore, the Giants have been a team I appreciated but didn’t root for.  Until last year in the playoffs.  How one could not cheer for the Giants, especially against the Patriots would seem crazy to me.  That person probably cheered for Dolph Lungren in Rocky IV too. 

I skipped a commission meeting to go.  Fortunately, I invited our new senior pastor so I’m pretty semi-confident that I won’t get in too much trouble.  Arriving about four hours early, I could not get over all the tailgating.  Our tailgating party was out of an RV, had steak, shrimp cocktail, beer of course, and satellite tv showing the pre-game.  Oh, there was a DJ next door, err, the next parking space. 

So there I was eating steak, bbq chips, drinking Heineken, when The New Kids, “Hangin’ Tough” came on (He may not have been the coolest DJ, because earlier I think I heard Snow’s “Informer”).  Around that moment I started wondering what exactly was going on.  It was Thursday, my new senior pastor and I are tailgating with people we really don’t know, listening to someone’s playlist called “1986-1991” (Did I mention the Milli Vanilli?).

 

Prior to kick-off Pre-game Super Bowl celebrations.  That was cool as there was a lot of energy in the stadium for that.  Michael Strahan came out and introduced the Giants.  That also was cool until I found out that he needed to be paid 75,000 to do it.  Lame.  I would have done it for half and I probably wouldn’t have stuttered.  Anyway, The first half of the game was fantastic; second half, not so much.

 

Here’s where I get reflective.  There seems to be so much more community at football games as opposed to baseball games.  Don’t think I realized it as much til then.  Some of the tailgaters try to get the same spots, the season tickets holders welcoming and hugging each other prior to kick off.  One guy showed off his new baby who was born in the off-season.  Maybe that happens in the expensive box seats at Yankee Stadium but whatever.  Baseball of course has about 8x the amount of home games so I’m sure that’s part of it. 

 

It brought back a conversation that I had with a woman regarding why her brother always went to the bar.  I tried to explain that was place of community.  He goes there to get what she gets out of the Ladies Bible Study.  The Scriptures are an important part of it, but there’s a reason why she goes to her church bible study.  She knows those ladies.  Similarly, her brother goes to that bar to talk about sports and whatever with his “small group”. 

We Christians, are used to thinking of this type of community strictly in our terms but there are so many other ways that people connect.  This isn’t to say that we each receive the same type of benefits or in our language “blessings” but I think it’s an observation worth mentioning.  If he idea of “office wife” makes sense to you, then you will see this.  If you see that as a form of adultery, then these you’ll probably be frustrated with the rest of these thoughts, this blog, me, you don’t get the Simpson’s but let me humbly encourage you to expand your way of thinking.