Friday, January 14, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
The alchemist
It's not love to be static like the desert, nor is it love to roam the world like the wind. And it's not love to see everything from a distance, like you do (the sun). Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the World...when we love, we always strive to become better than we are...
The boy turned to the hand that wrote all. As he did so, he sensed that the universe had fallen silent, and he decided not to speak. A current of love rushed from his heart and the boy began to pray. It was a prayer that he had never said before, because it was a prayer without words or pleas. His prayer didn't give thanks for his sheep having found new pastures; it didn't ask that the boy be able to sell more crystal; and it didn't beseech that the women he had met continue to await his return. In the silence, the boy understood that the desert, the wind, and the sun were also trying to understand the signs written by the hand, and were seeking to follow their paths, and to understand what had been written on a single emerald.
The boy turned to the hand that wrote all. As he did so, he sensed that the universe had fallen silent, and he decided not to speak. A current of love rushed from his heart and the boy began to pray. It was a prayer that he had never said before, because it was a prayer without words or pleas. His prayer didn't give thanks for his sheep having found new pastures; it didn't ask that the boy be able to sell more crystal; and it didn't beseech that the women he had met continue to await his return. In the silence, the boy understood that the desert, the wind, and the sun were also trying to understand the signs written by the hand, and were seeking to follow their paths, and to understand what had been written on a single emerald.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
Worth the listen
Open the mp3 clip. It is a rather long clip but profoundly challenging...take the time to lisen
- what needs to change?
- how?
click here
- what needs to change?
- how?
click here
The main thing, is the main thing
The main bit is at 2:10 to 2:46 in the clip.....listen carefully
- what is the main emphasis in our faith expression?
- what is the priority?
- how can we move others towards such an ideal?
click here
- what is the main emphasis in our faith expression?
- what is the priority?
- how can we move others towards such an ideal?
click here
think forward
What we believe emanates from who we are. And who we are is not about dogma, or even about moral behavior, but about dying to ourselves. This is part of the conversation between ThinkFwd host, Spencer Burke, and Pete Rollins, author of How Not to Speak of God and The Orthodox Heretic. They explore the ideas of truth and God, of resurrection and insurrection.Truth, says Rollins, is not one extreme or the other; its not the middle of the extremes. Truth is at both extremes. While traditional Christians say, God is present. God exists, and Christianity is true; atheists say God isnt there and Christianity isnt true. These two extremes push Rollins to explore a 3rd position and he likens it to the story of Jesus on the cross, when He felt forsaken by God-- God not present--and yet God was completely present. And so the 3rd position dwells in the very place in between. Rollins says Christians are called to dwell not on one side of the other, but in the very split that Christ opens up: between old and new; between Judaism and Christianity.
- do you live in the tension that is the split?
- how can we live more in balance?
- how can we bring movement towards balance in our faith expressions?
- do you live in the tension that is the split?
- how can we live more in balance?
- how can we bring movement towards balance in our faith expressions?
Monday, July 12, 2010
Brian Mclaren answers the million dollar question
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/brian_d_mclaren/2010/07/let_there_be_peace_in_our_individual_identities.html
Monday, June 14, 2010
History
Reading the minutes of the primitive methodists from 1860-1882, it is facinating to note that Good Friday was a good day for fund raising (rather than celebration), Easter and Christmas were acceptable times for leave for ministers and that a Christmas day service was NOT the norm. We forget that as protestants, Christmas (Christ Mass - a Catholic celebration) and Easter were 'events' related to the Catholic faith they were protesting against and therefore did not observe. And yet today it is these very protestants who kick up a fuss when secular cities do not want to call things Easter or Christmas when 200 years ago those same protestants would agree. How history changes and how quick we forget.
Thanks to Michael Hickman for the information on the minutes
Thanks to Michael Hickman for the information on the minutes
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tony Campolo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m584z5aE4Uc
The main bit is at 2:10 to 2:46 in the clip.....listen carefully
I can not deny how I got it wrong so many times when the priorty was not Matthew 25 but rather my own self righteous judgement (insecurities). The priority is love in action...and to that end I strive.
The main bit is at 2:10 to 2:46 in the clip.....listen carefully
I can not deny how I got it wrong so many times when the priorty was not Matthew 25 but rather my own self righteous judgement (insecurities). The priority is love in action...and to that end I strive.
Compassion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s30ZKjNfRlU
I have met too many people hurt, rejected, struggling and broken who do not fit the stereo-type the conservative church would have you believe but people with tears in their eyes shattered by the words spoken in judgement. I heard a good friend say once, 'God aint gonna judge you for being too kind and compassionate...rather for not being enough'
I have met too many people hurt, rejected, struggling and broken who do not fit the stereo-type the conservative church would have you believe but people with tears in their eyes shattered by the words spoken in judgement. I heard a good friend say once, 'God aint gonna judge you for being too kind and compassionate...rather for not being enough'
Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity
'I am a Christian who no longer believes in Christianity'
This is an extremely provocative statement that Brian is making but I agree and understand what he is saying. For quite some time now I have been in conflict due to my own personal experience of God compared to my experience of institutional church. The two seems poles apart. What I have experienced is cold judgement, arrogance, elitism and many other negative gospel-denying characteristics. Too many, too many times to keep ignoring and excusing.
In fact, I would possible even take it another step further and not even label myself Christian anymore because when that label was given to believers in Antioch it was defining a completely different person compared to today what is understood by Christian.
Many may find security in the label, finding the label acting as a pillar which if removed will jeopardise the remaining structure. In my journey 'away from here' I have found that vulnerability extremely uncomfortable and exposing but as I begin to slowly identify new arrival points, the vulnerability has been worth it. See my next post as to some of those arrival points. Thank you for listening.
This is an extremely provocative statement that Brian is making but I agree and understand what he is saying. For quite some time now I have been in conflict due to my own personal experience of God compared to my experience of institutional church. The two seems poles apart. What I have experienced is cold judgement, arrogance, elitism and many other negative gospel-denying characteristics. Too many, too many times to keep ignoring and excusing.
In fact, I would possible even take it another step further and not even label myself Christian anymore because when that label was given to believers in Antioch it was defining a completely different person compared to today what is understood by Christian.
Many may find security in the label, finding the label acting as a pillar which if removed will jeopardise the remaining structure. In my journey 'away from here' I have found that vulnerability extremely uncomfortable and exposing but as I begin to slowly identify new arrival points, the vulnerability has been worth it. See my next post as to some of those arrival points. Thank you for listening.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Thomas Moore
There are two ways to be spiritually secure: one is to attach to a fixed and uncomplicated teaching, leadership, and set of moral standards. Another is to be open to life, ever deepening your understanding and giving up all defensiveness around convictions. The first way offers only the illusion of certainty, an illusion that must be maintained by anxious inflexibility. The second is to live from a deeper source, with values that cannot be codified in a list of rules. Central among these values is love, understood as profound respect for others.
Writing in the sand, p.xvi
I am drawn and challenged by these words because as I stand aloof as an on-looker at my own faith, the tradition I am a part of, I see these two tensions exist in futile revelry. Not only do I straddle both these opposing worldviews and philosophies in my working context, I have also colluded with both like a harlot, guilty myself of the illusion it evoked until my reality and the 'shit that happens' rocked me into the reality of failure and rejection. And at that point of isolated vulnerability, it is the latter that has been the most accepting, restorative and the most honest option for me to pursue as a new deeper experience.
Writing in the sand, p.xvi
I am drawn and challenged by these words because as I stand aloof as an on-looker at my own faith, the tradition I am a part of, I see these two tensions exist in futile revelry. Not only do I straddle both these opposing worldviews and philosophies in my working context, I have also colluded with both like a harlot, guilty myself of the illusion it evoked until my reality and the 'shit that happens' rocked me into the reality of failure and rejection. And at that point of isolated vulnerability, it is the latter that has been the most accepting, restorative and the most honest option for me to pursue as a new deeper experience.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Performance and Auntenticity
Christian ministry somehow failed to professionalize:
the clergyman is a jack of all trades...there is nothing which he does that could not be done equally well by a lawyer or bricklayer in the congregation...He does not have a job at all in any sense which is readily understandable today, and today, more than ever before, a person must have a job in order to fit into society...p87
Performing priesthood made him less authentic rather than more: instead of finding unity in a variety of roles, he had come to believe that he was acting rather than being true to himself ...p88
Redefining Christian Britain
In a module on inter-professionalism the above statement hit me like a ton of bricks. My hidden status and profession as a minister, I suggested clergy could be part of this inter-professional discussion. Laughter burst forth as if I was the new comedian on the block. Have we 'de-professionalised' ourselves? Has society? Have we just been left behind, asleep?
I do feel we still have much to offer, some more so than others, but the challenge lay mockingly on the table...can we again be a part of society in a way that contributes and that is valued by society?
The gauntlet perhaps is more personal and boils down to authenticity?
the clergyman is a jack of all trades...there is nothing which he does that could not be done equally well by a lawyer or bricklayer in the congregation...He does not have a job at all in any sense which is readily understandable today, and today, more than ever before, a person must have a job in order to fit into society...p87
Performing priesthood made him less authentic rather than more: instead of finding unity in a variety of roles, he had come to believe that he was acting rather than being true to himself ...p88
Redefining Christian Britain
In a module on inter-professionalism the above statement hit me like a ton of bricks. My hidden status and profession as a minister, I suggested clergy could be part of this inter-professional discussion. Laughter burst forth as if I was the new comedian on the block. Have we 'de-professionalised' ourselves? Has society? Have we just been left behind, asleep?
I do feel we still have much to offer, some more so than others, but the challenge lay mockingly on the table...can we again be a part of society in a way that contributes and that is valued by society?
The gauntlet perhaps is more personal and boils down to authenticity?
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Colin Morris
Perhaps Christianity became a problem solving religion when, instead of it converting Europe as is widely supposed, European culture converted Christianity from being a near-eastern apocalyptic faith into a western problem solving ideology to be harnessed to the needs of an optimistic and thrusting scientific civilization. p61 start your own religion
Monday, April 27, 2009
john shelby spong
Look at him! Look not at his divinity, but look, rather, at his freedom.
Look not at the exaggerated tales of his of his power, but look, rather at his infinite capacity to give himself away.
Look not at the first-century mythology that surrounds him, but look, rather, at his courage to be, his ability to live, the contagious quality of his love.
p16...in grief situations that i have entered as a pastor, it is inevitably the religious person who is insensitive, who feels compelled to speak surface assurances, who suppresses real feelings with homilies on faith, and who readily supplies pat answers for diffecult and complex questions.
p54...i am glad the realm of spiritual is no more. i am glad that the god identified with this realm is dead. we isolated the god of our religion in a system and located it in an otherworldly ghetto. Now the secular world has killed that god...but a god who could be isolated from the world could certainly not be either the god of the hebrews or the god of the bible. so perhaps the death of that god is only the death of an idol who masqueraded as god for almost 2000 years...for the first time since christianity escaped its jewish origins, we again perceive reality as a whole.
p164...orthodoxy will have no power unless honest heresy is a possibility.
Look not at the exaggerated tales of his of his power, but look, rather at his infinite capacity to give himself away.
Look not at the first-century mythology that surrounds him, but look, rather, at his courage to be, his ability to live, the contagious quality of his love.
p16...in grief situations that i have entered as a pastor, it is inevitably the religious person who is insensitive, who feels compelled to speak surface assurances, who suppresses real feelings with homilies on faith, and who readily supplies pat answers for diffecult and complex questions.
p54...i am glad the realm of spiritual is no more. i am glad that the god identified with this realm is dead. we isolated the god of our religion in a system and located it in an otherworldly ghetto. Now the secular world has killed that god...but a god who could be isolated from the world could certainly not be either the god of the hebrews or the god of the bible. so perhaps the death of that god is only the death of an idol who masqueraded as god for almost 2000 years...for the first time since christianity escaped its jewish origins, we again perceive reality as a whole.
p164...orthodoxy will have no power unless honest heresy is a possibility.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Browning quoted by Drane
Most of us stand on the boundary: religious communities attract us; we may even participate in them; but we also wonder if they make sense.
The McDonaldization of the church
The McDonaldization of the church
Saturday, November 15, 2008
i-revtrev
Exert from new book:
I like to think that one day out side time and space (I know, that is a paradox!) there existed (another paradox because to exist assumes time) this ‘being’ called Love. This Love was not some ungraspable phenomenon like the wind but had a personality and other personable qualities and in its nature being love, seeking to love, Love decided to create a life that would be able to share in this life force of love but also be objects of love, experiencing and being loved by Love. However, understanding the complexities of this mystery love (and truly who today still understands love), Love gave Love a name…God and so we have: God is Love.
I like to think that one day out side time and space (I know, that is a paradox!) there existed (another paradox because to exist assumes time) this ‘being’ called Love. This Love was not some ungraspable phenomenon like the wind but had a personality and other personable qualities and in its nature being love, seeking to love, Love decided to create a life that would be able to share in this life force of love but also be objects of love, experiencing and being loved by Love. However, understanding the complexities of this mystery love (and truly who today still understands love), Love gave Love a name…God and so we have: God is Love.
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