Pagan Christianity: My 6 of Spades

I inserted an image in a previous post, so nothing but text today!

Apart from the implications that my ordination is presumptuous, my livelihood is unscriptural, and, I've tithed for all the wrong reasons for 37 years now...it was a good book with which to engage.

Knowing the human condition from my own personal albeit limited experience, I have no problem at all believing that it only took a couple of hundred years for the church to begin veering off track and inappropriately institutionalizing what was meant to be an organic and Spirit-guided enterprise of faith and Kingdom living.

The big question, however, is how to take the church we now experience and navigate a transition towards the original concept of ekklesia and spiritual apprenticeship.

I would venture to say that my life and 'ministry' experience will look VERY different in 2 to 3 years...I'm just not sure exactly how to get there with family, marriage, career, etc in tact.

You can visit the author's website for more information on the book. I would also encourage you to evaluate the claims and search the scriptures before drawing any 'hard' conclusions.

Show or Go?

Church continues to be a struggle for me. Another stressful Sunday morning trying to piece it all together for the "show."

At 1pm came the pinnacle of ministry and ecclesia for the day as a few of us went to hang out at a local retirement community to sing, pray, and have simple conversations.

One of these things reflected an attempt to fulfill the great commission and be a missional influence for the Kingdom.

The other...not so much.
(Disclaimer: These are generic pictures from the web and not actual photos from our ministry)

2008 Reading Goals

Well, I need to catch up a bit on my reading list for 2008. Here it is the month of May and I'm still in the Spades!

The 3 of Spades was Brueggemann's Prophetic Imagination. I've already posted on that read. I'm sure I'll be reading that one again at least every other year. Not a lot of pages there...but quite loaded theologically and practically.

The 4 of Spades was a little book we studied with our men's group at Lifespring. Pretty basic approach to the kinds of struggles men face parallelled with the life of Samson...which was quite a mess! His story is really not what you'd call G-rated Sunday School stuff for kids. And he certainly isn't someone we want to model our lives after.

The next book I really jumped into and devoured was one called Tangible Kingdom by Hugh Halter and his buddy Matt Smay. I bumped into these guys at the Exponential conference in Orlando a few weeks ago...and Hugh's story really jumped out at me. It's basically the story of beginning a very incarnational and missional community in Denver which has grown into something called 'Adullam.'

It really challenges our approach to the Kingdom and inspires you to take a missionary-type approach to living in our culture. The gospel is NOT reduced to praying a prayer or attending 'church.' It's one of those books that I read and think... "I could've written most of that because I've been experiencing it!"


And for a preview of my current book in progress...this one has already been the subject of much criticism and debate, so I want to check it out. My suspicion is that it will pour a little fuel on some of the questions which have been sparking in my mind for some time.

Grand Theft Auto IV & Rev. Wright

Actually...others have beat me to the punch on these two topics (since I apparently only post monthly now).

But I did read an interesting article over at "Out of Ur" which addressed the video game release. You can check that out here.

Then my buddy Bob Hunter over at plungefaith.com posted something (along with many others) on the Rev. Wright and his outlandish remarks and threats towards Obama.

These are certainly interesting conversation starters, but as I think more about the ways in which we blog and obsess over certain kinds of headlines and topics, it occurs to me how much this kind of writing is preferred over what I might call real life interests and issues.

For instance, what if I was to turn the lens of my attention away from the Rev. Wright to myself. The big story in my life is not ridiculous statements made by this angry wielder of words...but the ways in which I have misused words in my home this past week. Whether it was a rude flippant remark I made to my wife or even the words of encouragement I withheld from my terrific and beautiful daughters, that story is much more difficult to talk about than the fiery debates going on between famous representatives of emergent and traditional evangelical pastor-teachers.

And instead of talking about the potential harmful effects of Grand Theft Auto IV (which are no doubt a reality of some sort) perhaps I should confess that I've spent more time playing World of Warcraft over the past few weeks than I have doing just about anything else?!

As someone who is trying to be a cultivator-creator of community...I keep coming back to authenticity as a core value in relationships and in the church.