In the Gospel reading from yesterday (Luke 24) we encounter the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus. Dwelling in the passage last week as I prepared to preach, I continually came back to the perspective of the two followers Jesus meets on the road. I was struck by the fact that they had given themselves [...]
In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love. –Mother Teresa
Each one of them is Jesus in disguise. –Mother Teresa
Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. –Mother Teresa
I do not pray for success, I ask [...]
The Other: Postmodern shorthand for anyone differing in any way from “us,” born of the reality that in an era of radical pluralism and globalization, we are constantly confronted with people who are indeed different from us.
Tony Jones, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier
Jesus and the Kingdom, Brian McLaren
Can you imagine a community [...]
In a number of settings recently at SMC, I have been asked about vision for church as a missional community (I am particularly thinking of Melissa’s questions). I feel like I have not yet done justice to answering these questions. It involves a radical re-imagining of church. It doesn’t mean we change the center from historic [...]
Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training…. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave…. 1 Corinthians 9:25-27
Lent begins next week. Easter is early this year–March 23 in Western Christianity. Thinking [...]
Christians in the Eastern Orthodox tradition remind us of a remarkable truth when they honor Mary with the technical term theotokos or “bearer of God” in their special hymn:
Today is the beginning of our salvation,
The revelation of the eternal mystery!
The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin
As Gabriel announces the coming of Grace.
Together [...]
Okay, I’m trading in my weak kool-aid for the vintage Bordeaux. Walter Brueggamann’s 19 theses say so much better what I have been trying to wrestle with in recent posts (and in my sermon on Sunday)–the tension between the Empire narrative (script is Brueggemann’s word) and the Gospel narrative (the alternative script). Here they are:
1. Everybody [...]
I heard a statement recently that is making my reading of Scripture sizzle. From Genesis to Revelation the predominant theme is of God acting within history–using a marginal people, a community of resistance against the backdrop of Empire. Empires promise the good life–and a minority achieve it. But at what cost? For others Empire means [...]
Willow Creek Community Church (Bill Hybels), recently conducted an internal qualitative study to evaluate the effectiveness of their ministry over the years. Check out this link–Willow Creek repents. It seems that after 30 years of working at church from an entrepreneurial paradigm–business model approach that views the parrishoner (seeker) as the customer and the church [...]
What would happen if alongside the Church a healthy crop of missional orders would sprout up? Organized blooms of spiritual direction and social action…
Would the Church feel threatened? What kind of ecclesiology allows for manifold expressions of worshipping/missional communities oriented around seeking the Kingdom of God? Would it be possible to lay down old structures–top down vision [...]
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