Existential Punk

Gotta be the best treatise on the Emerging Church

I just finished Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures written by Ryan Bolger and Eddie Gibbs, both professors at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Wow, they spent 5 years researching the emerging church in the UK and the USA, interviewing numerous and often relatively unknown leaders and proponents of this fascinating conversation. They do a really thorough job of relating the ins and outs of the emerging church, putting real meat on the bones. I think this book succintly and intelligently lays out for people what this enigma is all about in all its different contexts. They have given a forum for numerous people to express themselves about what emergent and emerging means for them in their particular contexts. I had no idea until I read the book that my good friend, Pete Rollins from ikon in Belfast, N. Ireland was one of those leaders included. The book is so accessible to people, whether they are conversant in emergent or not. For those who are conversant, it offers fresh insights into communities not heard much from and for those not conversant, explains emerging church in manageable and easy to understand terminology.

Here are some quotes about the book:

"Emerging is just about wrought-iron candles and prayer stations, right? Think again. Gibbs and Bolger have given us invaluable insight into the deeper values shaping ministries for postmoderns. If you're serious about mission in today's much-altered Western world, you can't miss this book."

    - Sally Morgenthaler

"Mention "emerging churches" around a random selection of today's church leaders and half will have no idea what you are talking about while the other half are busy trying to plant one. This book informs the uninitiated while also helping overeager planters understand that these unique communities, as their name implies, emerge gradually, many times without the help of the institutional church. Fuller Seminary researchers Gibbs and Bolger spent five years collecting data in both the U.S. and U.K. and interviewing 50 leaders—most under the age of 40—to uncover important patterns among emerging churches. They emphasize the life of faith as Jesus demonstrated, employ a "going out" attitude toward the world rather than expecting people to "come to" their communities and consider all of life sacred. Also, these communities prefer relationships to meetings, so there may be no set worship gathering time or, indeed, no fixed place to meet. The authors paint emerging churches as attractive, hopeful and ever-evolving, populated by some of the most vibrant, open-minded and service-oriented young Christians. Readers who are attached to "church business as usual" will be shaken up by this book, while those ready for a change will find it energizing."

    - Publishers Weekly from Amazon.com

This is what I am giving for Christmas presents this year! Thank you, Eddie Gibbs, Ryan Bolger, Baker Academic Publishing, and all you wonderful emerging church leaders out there! Pax!

Birthing something new

First of all, a HUGE thanks to my friend, Daniel, for taking this great photo of my dear friend and pastor, Rock Higgins. I call him pastor because in February 2006 a group of us here in Richmond, VA will be starting a new missional community in downtown Richmond and he will be our pastor. I am really excited as Richmond has not had a community like this from what I know of the city. Our community is called A Different Richmond and will be meeting on the 3rd floor of the Creative Change Center in Richmond's Shockoe Bottom. On Sunday, November 27th we are having a kickoff at 7 p.m. Here is some information from a flyer Rock created:

A NEW Christian Community
of Spiritual Practice

Ever wish you could start over?

Ever wish you could do the “faith thing” without a lot of the church-y baggage?

We do, too.

Calling all friends, new and old alike, for a kick-off evening of a new faith community actively working for personal and social transformation.  We invite you to check out A Different Richmond; our name says it all.  It is our mission, our vision and our prayer all wrapped up in one.   Our evening will have a Q&A time, refreshments, and a call to membership for those ready to commit.  What better way to kick off Advent than to begin the Christian year with  a new community?


If you want to know more, check out our website adifferentrichmond.net or contact Rock Higgins at 306-2112 or rock@adifferentrichmond.net with any questions

Robertson opens his big mouth once again!

Pat Robertson, who film students at his graduate school, Regent University, call P.Ro, is at it again with his insensitive, un-Christian remarks. Robertson had this to say on his television show, the 700 Club,

"And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there,"

Wow, I sure do not want to know the God Robertson proclaims to know. If God were really like this, then I would walk away from Christianity. Where is the love and compassion we are extoled to give to people? How can we claim to be God's voice or PR person?

If you like, you can read the entire article at CNN, and if you feel the need to scream, puke, and/or pray after finishing the articel, then please feel free.

God, please have mercy on us, your ignorant, broken, and stupid people. Help us not to be judgmental of Pat Robertson. Adam over at pomomusings offers up this simple, yet beautiful prayer:

    Lord have mercy.
     Christ have mercy.
     Lord have mercy.

Bono, da man!

Thanks to all the wonderful people over at Generous Orthodoxy Think Tank for leading me to this fabulous interview with Bono in Rolling Stone . He talks on topics of growing up in Dublin, why and where he gets his cool sunglasses, evangelicals, faith, God, the Bible, music, and life. He is really honest and I thank Rolling Stone for publishing this telling interview and not glossing it over. Here is just a sampling from the interview:

First off: Where do you get those sunglasses?

Bulgari. A lot of people think that, when they see a "B" on the side, that it's just my own megalomania. Only half the time it is. I'm the Imelda Marcos of sunglasses.

Why do you wear them all the time?

Very sensitive eyes to light. If somebody takes my photograph, I will see the flash for the rest of the day. My right eye swells up. I've a blockage there, so that my eyes go red a lot. So it's part vanity, it's part privacy and part sensitivity.

III. A SPIRITUAL LIFE

What role did religion play in your childhood?

I knew that we were different on our street because my mother was Protestant. And that she'd married a Catholic. At a time of strong sectarian feeling in the country, I knew that was special. We didn't go to the neighborhood schools -- we got on a bus. I picked up the courage they had to have had to follow through on their love.

Did you feel religious when you went to church?

Even then I prayed more outside of the church than inside. It gets back to the songs I was listening to; to me, they were prayers. "How many roads must a man walk down?" That wasn't a rhetorical question to me. It was addressed to God. It's a question I wanted to know the answer to, and I'm wondering, who do I ask that to? I'm not gonna ask a schoolteacher. When John Lennon sings, "Oh, my love/For the first time in my life/My eyes are wide open" -- these songs have an intimacy for me that's not just between people, I realize now, not just sexual intimacy. A spiritual intimacy.

Who is God to you at that point in your life?

I don't know. I would rarely be asking these questions inside the church. I see lovely nice people hanging out in a church. Occasionally, when I'm singing a hymn like . . . oh, if I can think of a good one . . . oh, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" or "Be Thou My Vision," something would stir inside of me. But, basically, religion left me cold.

What is your religious belief today? What is your concept of God?

If I could put it simply, I would say that I believe there's a force of love and logic in the world, a force of love and logic behind the universe. And I believe in the poetic genius of a creator who would choose to express such unfathomable power as a child born in "straw poverty"; i.e., the story of Christ makes sense to me.

How does it make sense?

As an artist, I see the poetry of it. It's so brilliant. That this scale of creation, and the unfathomable universe, should describe itself in such vulnerability, as a child. That is mind-blowing to me. I guess that would make me a Christian. Although I don't use the label, because it is so very hard to live up to. I feel like I'm the worst example of it, so I just kinda keep my mouth shut.

Do you pray or have any religious practices?

I try to take time out of every day, in prayer and meditation. I feel as at home in a Catholic cathedral as in a revival tent. I also have enormous respect for my friends who are atheists, most of whom are, and the courage it takes not to believe.

How big an influence is the Bible on your songwriting? How much do you draw on its imagery, its ideas?

It sustains me.

As a belief, or as a literary thing?

As a belief. These are hard subjects to talk about because you can sound like such a dickhead. I'm the sort of character who's got to have an anchor. I want to be around immovable objects. I want to build my house on a rock, because even if the waters are not high around the house, I'm going to bring back a storm. I have that in me. So it's sort of underpinning for me.

I don't read it as a historical book. I don't read it as, "Well, that's good advice." I let it speak to me in other ways. They call it the rhema. It's a hard word to translate from Greek, but it sort of means it changes in the moment you're in. It seems to do that for me.

You're saying it's a living thing?

It's a plumb line for me. In the Scriptures, it is self-described as a clear pool that you can see yourself in, to see where you're at, if you're still enough. I'm writing a poem at the moment called "The Pilgrim and His Lack of Progress." I'm not sure I'm the best advertisement for this stuff.

The Power of One, Again!

Once again, another woman, from Burma, has taken on a cause to bring back freedom to her military infested homeland. Her name is Aung San Suu Ky, and this is her story. In 1991 she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work to bring Burma back to a democratic government. Her influences in non-violent and peaceful demonstrations are Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Ghandi. Thank you, Aung San Suu Ky, for your bravery, strength, fortitude, and perseverance! God, watch over her, protect her, and allow her to be effective in bringing peace to her homeland. 

Pirates of the Somalian Coast

The story of a cruise ship traveling from Egypt along the Somalian Coast was attacked by pirates as reported in this BBC article.The pirates were thwarted and none of the passengers were harmed. One crew member was hurt by schrapnel. The article reports
that "At least 23 hijackings and attempted seizures have been recorded off the Somali coast since mid-March, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), which has warned ships to stay as far away from the coast as possible.

Two ships carrying aid for the UN World Food Program were among the vessels attacked this year.

"The southern coastline is among the most dangerous in the world," said Mr Mwangura.

Somalia has been without a functioning central authority since 1991 when warlords took power after Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted."

SO, WHY WAS THIS CRUISE SHIP 100 MILES OFF THE COAST OF SOMALIA IF IT IS SO DANGEROUS?  It's the resposibility of the cruise line to check these things out and thye people traveling also have a responsibility to check areas of travel for safety issues. This was so stupid, but thankfully the stupidity did not lead to anyone's death.

The Power of One

Mukhtar Mai  is being lauded as the Woman of the Year and quickly becoming known as Pakistan's Rosa Parks. She was gang raped three years ago in order for her family to be restored dignity after trumped up charges were brought against her brother. I sat and watched her story on CNN and was encouraged by her anger that motivated her to do something positive for, not only herself, but for all oppressed women, men, and children around the world. In a culture that treats women as second class citizens, this was an extremely radical step for her to take. She took the men who raped her to Pakistan's highest court and won. She received $250,000 and used it to build the first school in her village where the children are learning, most importantly, not to hate and to respect each other. Glamour Magazine honored her for her heroic story, but the president of Pakistan, out of shame, tried to keep her from going to the USA, but she persevered and made it. When the reporters on CNN came on after the video clip of her story, they sat there in awe, stating how amazing the power of one person can make a difference and how authentic she is. They also talked about how real she is and just really living out what she believed. This echoed to me once again that people are seeking out authenticity and that as followers of Christ, we need to just live out our lives as authentically as possible, without an advertising plan of spreading the Gospel. Thank you, Mukhtar Mai, for your example of courage in the face of adversity.

Dubh Interview

Thanks Jonny Baker for the heads up on the interview with Paul Hutchinson, one half of strAy, who made IKON's cd Dubh. I am waiting for my copy to be delivered from
Will Samson, who is distributing some of them in the USA. I am so excited to hear my friends from IKON
doing their creative thing. Way to go Jonny, Pete, Padraig and all the others involved in seeing this piece come to fruition.

Such a hypocrite!

i am such a hypocrite. No, i am not beating myself up, berating myself, looking for sympathy or anything other than finding my way out of denial. Well, i know we can all be hypocrites at times, but my worst times occur while i am driving. I really try to obey the traffic laws, but often find myself going 5 to 10 miles over the posted speed limit. If people are going slow in the fast lane of the interstate, i will ride up on their tail and flash my high beams at them or honk. i am so impatient. Then, where the hypocrisy comes in is when drivers do the same thing to me. i get insensed, angry, sometimes flip them the bird, profane in the privacy of my car calling them an idiot or jerk or asshole. Today on my way home i approached a red light that is clearly marked "NO TURN ON RED", and waited patiently. But i saw two cars make the illegal turn and i started my bitching again. When I finished, it finally hit me, i am such a hypocrite and no better than those people, also God's children. i talked to God about it and confessed my treacherous actions. God, please help me and show me what is going on in my soul that i react in these demeaning, prideful, and haughty ways.

Flea and Ticks

You have got to see the latest mp3 player from Apple ! It is revolutionary and exciting. Enjoy the video clip advertising it! Our little family keeps growing! What will Apple think of next, walkie talkie, picture taking, movie making ipods or tampon sized for discreet listening in classes?