Hello Pastor

Ever wonder what church planters spend their time doing when they get together at presbytery? Well, they talk about feedback from visitors for one thing. See what we have to look forward to? :-)

Passing the Plate

Once again, Jeremy Huggins has some brilliant musings, this time on passing the plate, humping Darwin-fish, Easter, and how they're all related:

Last Sunday, my church held its Easter service at a neighborhood museum, which was very confusing, not because of the new location but because of the bronzed Darwin-Fish Humping a Sandbag sculptures just outside the front doors. I can describe the sculptures for you, but five days since my first encounter and I still can't explain them. Perhaps I should just take a picture and let you interpret (one at a time, of course, and orderly, lest the stranger be confused).

I'll be the first to admit that "church" can be confusing sometimes, and not just for the uninitiated, the disenfranchised, and the adherents to the Cult of the Fertile Sandbag. Sometimes I don't know how best to respond. During Sunday's service, when the normal time for the offering plate to come around came around, I realized I had earlier used my last shekels on cigarettes and coffee, but I did have in my bag some tenderable good: decision time: I quickly summoned up everything I could recall from my seminary ethics class, but I couldn't recount anything that would help me determine the morality or lack thereof of placing a winning $5 scratch ticket in the offering plate.

And then, as so rarely happens in these matters, the decision was made for me. The pastor had decided (in my mind, a beautiful decision) not to take up any offering lest those who visit church once a year associate the hearing of the gospel with payment. Times like that, I'm terribly fond of the church.

Do yourself a favor and go read the whole thing... [yes, he has posted pictures].

The Davinci Code Madness

Have you read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code yet? I personally haven't, but hope to over the summer. If you have, perhaps you have questions. A new website has just launched that seeks to interact with some of the questions raised in the book. Check out the new site at The Truth About Da Vinci. I'd love to get some feedback about what people have thought of this book. Should I spend the time to read it? Convince me.

Zero to Sixty

We're cruising along at 36,000 feet, and the forty-somethings in front of me are making out like a pair of junior highers in the back of the bus. Not bad for two people who didn't even know one another when we left Philly three hours ago, and who (by the looks of it) will probably know one another a whole lot more intimately by tomorrow morning in Denver.

Then again, no matter how fast you go from zero to sixty, it still takes time to really know someone - there's just no shortcutting relationship. It's amazing how a little alcohol mixed with anonymity can bring out the deepest desires in people.

It's a little weird watching other people suck face, especially on a plane. It's kind of like watching an in-flight video without any headphones - when you can hear the movie, it all makes perfect sense, it becomes real and draws you in. But without any music, dialog, and sound, strange things happen: comedies become a lot less funny, dramas become a lot less dramatic. You notice all kinds of things that you never see when you are caught up in the moment.

And that's the funny thing about love (or lust) - when you are the one who's in it, unexpectedly kissing that mysterious women next to you, it all feels so natural and right, it seems to make perfect sense. Yet when you find yourself a spectator just a few feet away in a ringside seat, it takes on a decidedly different hue. It's like watching a train-wreck in the making - you can't help but gawk, but you know you really shouldn't, because you are of witnessing perfectly intelligent people make really stupid decisions they are going to regret later, maybe forever, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.

In some ways it feels a little like walking in on your mom and dad, when you should have been asleep hours ago but you decided you needed a glass of water and so you went to ask and... Hey, what are you guys doing?!? Eeewwww, GROSS! Only in this case, its not your mom and dad - there's no long term commitment to somehow sanctify the moment. Its glandular, pure and simple. And everybody knows it.

So where am I going with all this? I'm not really sure. It just strikes me as very, very interesting - a microcosm if you will. On the one hand, it's a great illustration of just how blind we can be to our own sin, how something which everyone else clearly sees as bad, can nevertheless feel pretty darn good when we're the ones doing the indulging.

On the other hand, it also says a lot about relationships - most of us intuitively recognize that we are meant for something better. What makes the glandular stuff really grand is when it occurs in the context of a deeper commitment - to one another, for the sake of one another, not simply for the sake of the immediate urge. Why is this the case? Because this is the way God created us - in his image. We are meant for something beautiful, transcendent, and that always occurs in the context of obligation to another.

It's also tremendously indicative of just how desperate we are FOR relationships - the alcohol doesn't produce this kind of behavior; it just unlocks the heart and removes some of the inhibitions. We are a people who cannot find fulfillment in ourselves, because we were not meant to.

The sad thing of all in this is that they're not going to get what they're really after. It's like the old U2 song - they still haven't found what they're looking for, and deep down everyone (both us and them) knows they won't get it this way either. Even sadder is the fact that most of us are more like them than we'd care to admit - put us in the right circumstances, and we'd probably do the same type of things (maybe worse).

This might be a good time to take a look in the mirror, to consider where we're really looking for fulfillment, and ponder what it must look like to those sitting a few rows back...

Power for Change

Once again, I'm blogging on something I've been reading for class – this time it's Paul Tripp's War of Words. Tripp says something very interesting on pg 45:

“Power has been given. It resides in you by the Spirit... Wife, it is a denial of the gospel to look at your husband and say to yourself, 'Why bother? He can't change.' Husband, it is a denial of the gospel to be self-righteous and defensive when your wife tries to talk to you about sin in your life. Parents, you deny the gospel when you allow your communication with your child to be ruled by unrestrained emotions and desires. Because the Word has come and given us power...”

There are so many things worth mentioning here. In terms of basic context, Tripp is talking about how God has actually richly equipped us to handle relational conflict. Pointing to Eph 1:18-19, Tripp reminds us that in Christ, God has given us hope, spiritual wealth, and most importantly power for change. It's the 'power' part that caught my attention.

In Ephesians, Paul says that the very power which raised Christ from the dead – that same power is at work in us. It HAS been given. This is no mere potential for change; it's the real deal in the here and now, happening right before our eyes even when we cannot see it. It's like the inevitability of Spring, exploding to life just outside, although you wouldn't have seen it coming even last week. That's a mere shadow of what God is in us, in our relationships. In Christ, we ARE being transformed, by God, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And that's why it's so significant to believe that someone can't change. You see, either way it's an act of faith. I look at my wife's track record and lash out by saying: “16 years of marriage and you still haven't figured it out!” That may be true. But my conclusion – that therefore she will never change – that is fundamentally an act of faith. I do not know the future. None of us do. And yet all of us regularly draw conclusions about others – about what they've failed to do, about what they'll never manage to achieve. Inevitably, I do this to condemn, not to build up. I place myself in God's judgment seat, I lay out the case against her, and then I pronounce my verdict: guilty. I slay her in my heart.

That's why this is so serious. It is not merely a matter of misreading the data. It is fundamentally a denial of the gospel.

Listen, hope is actually faith that God can change things. When I give up on hope, I give up on faith in God – I deny that he is working, I deny that his power is sufficient. I stop looking at what is still unseen and instead live only by sight. And so I do not merely slay my wife, I also attack the sovereign God of the universe who has promised to redeem her. (Is it any wonder the prophets speak of idolatry being stupid?)

So where does this leave us? What are we to do? Try harder? Look for a new technique? No! As Tripp says, “We do not struggle with communication simply because we lack the skills or vocabulary. Our problem is powerlessness. Our problem is inability.” The solution is the gospel – to cling to Christ in faith. Because he HAS come; his power is now our power, if we are united to him in faith. Tripp continues:

“God hasn't issued us a series of grand and lofty directives and then sat back to see if we would obey them. No, he understands that our sin has rendered us powerless, and that we will not know what we need to know and cannot do what we need to do apart from him. So he has unzipped us and gotten inside us by his Spirit. His inconceivable power is within us! And it is not only within, it is at work!” (44).

This past week, I have seen firsthand reminders that God in indeed working – not just in the nature's madcap blooming outside, but in the hearts and lives of people all around me. I saw it in the people who came to hear what God is doing in our lives regarding church planting, and who went away excited because they caught a glimpse of how this gospel intersects with a world of unbelief, and their own hearts were moved to be a part of it.

I heard it in a brother's words, as he recounted his brush with death in the mountains of Montana two months ago, and how it has completely reoriented his life. I see it in the trial-worn face of a dear sister, who refuses to give up on a marriage that has been floundering for nearly 20 years. And I even saw it in my own heart as I flew home last night – thinking of my wife rather than fantasizing about the barely-dressed woman a few isles up on the airplane.

You see, God really is good, and he really is working. At the end of the day, that is what makes the gospel “good news” – change is possible! And it comes through faith in what God is doing, rather than in my own effort or progress, or that of others.

Christianity as a Preserver of Indigenous Cultures

Well, after a dizzying week of meeting with people, sharing our vision for the Missoula Project, and renewing a lot of old relationships (as well as beginning a lot of new ones), I'm finally getting a chance to catch my breath and start responding to emails, blogging a bit, etc. It's a good thing to be doing on Good Friday.

Since I have a moment, I thought I'd point you to Daniel Nairn's recent post over at Some Strange Ideas, where he has some interesting reflection on how mission might actually help preserve indigenous culture (rather than simply destroy it, which is usally taken as a given).

...despite a rocky history between Christian missions and European colonialism, the gospel of Jesus Christ may actually be the only hope for preserving indigenous cultures in an already globalized world. Through modern technological advancement in transportation and communication, the geographical barriers that created cultural differentiation in the first places are quickly eroding. Isolation is no longer possible, so the question shifts from whether to transmit a message at all to what kind of message should be transmitted.

He continues, quoting African missiologist Lamin Sanneh:

Christianity has not so much been divided by the languages of the world as been enriched by them, and enriching them in turn. The overwhelming majority of the world's languages have a dictionary and a grammar at all because of the modern missionary movement. With such systematic documentation the affected cultures could promote themselves in unprecedented and unsuspecting ways. More people pray and worship in more languages in Christianity than in any other religion.

And then he goes on to compare how Islam and Christianity differ deeply on the issue of translation. It's definitely worth reading the whole thing (it's short)...

habits of the high-tech heart

I've been reading this phenomenal book, Habits of the High-Tech Heart by Quentin Schultze. I have been convicted on so many levels by this book. It is essentially trying to get behind our quest and thirst for technology and information and to critically assess whether or not these desires are good and how well technology and information contribute to propelling us towards what we were created for. Instead, Schultze argues that these things are actually detracting from what we were created to be and live for.

I am posting a series of quotes from the first chapter of this book that I hope will cause you to pick up a copy for yourself. If you are in a technology field, this is a must read. I encourage you to soak in these quotes and assess your own views about information and technology. Perhaps I'll get around to posting more about this in a few days.

Although the vast majority of people in the world lack access to computers, let alone to the Internet, information-rich elites and experts assume on behalf of others that efficiency and control are inherently good values that will necessarily improve society, enrich private lives, and empower individuals. They assume that a faith in technique is good, progressive, and beneficial for all (18).

Unless we focus as much on the quality of our character as we do on technological innovation, potentially good informational techniques will ultimately reduce our capacity to love one another (19).

Instead of intentionally embedding cyber-technology existing cultures, we let cyber-technology shape our ways of life (20).

The Internet, in particular, has become a portal to evil where many people learn that incivility is fun, crudeness is a game, and the individual alone should be the only arbiter of truth and justice (20).

Of course, dismantling all information technologies is not a realistic or even a good solution. Wholesale destruction is both impractical and rash--a quick-fix technique with no lasting value. Instead, we have to give as much attention to the habits of our hearts as we do to our cyber-endeavors (21).

Although we celebrate the arrival of the information society, we have not fully faced its implications. Along with information come misinformation and disinformation. Rumor and hearsay abound. Opinions fly through digital networks. Deceitful persons and institutions spread half truths (25).

The plethora of available information makes us ever more dependent on experts who supposedly can interpret it for us (25).

We are succumbing to a non-discerning, vacuous faith in the collection and dissemination of information as a route to social progress and personal happiness (26).

As a quasi-religion, informationism preaches the is over the ought, observation over intimacy, and measurement over meaning (26).

In cyber-culture, we are increasingly obsessed with documenting the present rather than understanding the human condition, particularly our moral situation. Uninterested in the hard work of nurturing virtuous character, we hope for technological solutions to our moral problems (27).

The second section examines how our informational practices position us as impersonal observers of the world rather than intimate participants in the world…We become promiscuous knowers, flitting from one bit of information to another, with no fidelity to an overarching worldview…Although we selfishly gain more knowledge about the world, we lose the more intimate knowledge of the world…'Surfing' is an apt word for our condition because it connotes living on the surface of reality (27).

The third section discusses our high-tech penchant for measurement over meaning…The resulting cyber-worldview is a closed system that elevates the value of control over moral responsibility. Manipulating information to cause particular 'outcomes' becomes more important than being virtuous persons or contributing to a good society (27).

The more we imagine our lives and our societies as informational systems, the more likely it is that we will manipulate and control human beings as mere cogs in digital networks (27).

It is a morally bankrupt faith in our own ability to engineer the Promised Land (28).

Modern technologies provide us with a myriad of ways to 'delete' the moral life by focusing only on immediate, instrumental activities (28).

High school shootings momentarily prompt the nation to examine the impact of violent video games on young people, but before long we are back to business as usual, producing promotional Web sites for violent movies based on the same video games (29).

Our desires to become skillful technologists increasingly dictates our moral decisions. We rarely think about what it means to be good and wise people; instead, we focus on whether we are technically connected. We assume that by adopting novel technologies we can solve the moral problems created by earlier ones. Supposedly, encryption will ensure privacy. Web site "blocking" software at public libraries will protect children from access to adult materials online. Our romance with information technology leads us to assume that moral issues are best solved technologically (29).

Many people buy the latest equipment before its value is proven; they love being on the cutting edge before their friends are. But what is the real value of greater processing speed, a larger monitor, or expensive software with so many bells and whistles that we will rarely use, let alone master? Informationism thrives when our rhapsodies about the latest technologies give us the illusion of being informationally up-to-date, socially elevated, and professionally successful (30-31).

As we follow the buzz of the latest popular culture, we have little time to think about the kinds of individuals that we are becoming, let alone the types of persons that we should be (31).

In spite of our optimism about information technologies, they do not always deepen our relationships with others. The more time and energy we spend using information technologies, the less likely we are to know intimately the world around us. Information technologies foster secondhand knowledge about rather than more intimate knowledge of (32).

As the pool of information grows, our actual knowing declines. Knowledge exists "out there" in cyberspace, not in our minds and hearts. The Web, for example, is an enormous flea market of informational odds and ends. Billions of pages exist in cyberspace, but no one can know even a small percentage of them intimately. Nor is there an overarching Web librarian who knows the Web's 'catalogue' well (32).

Information technology becomes a means of manipulating the world to get what we want (33).

They [school students] see school-oriented knowing as an instrumental of getting grades and earning degrees, not as a means of becoming a wise person and contributing to a good society. Similar patterns of objectified knowing and informational dis-intimacy occur in churches, where sermons are abstracted lectures about religious information. Religious bookstores today sell an amazing array of spiritualized self-help literature designed to solve believers' immediate problems rather than to show them how to nurture faith over a lifetime (33).

Reading online about the needs of the world, for instance, is never the same as personally knowing people in need (34).

Informationism encourages informational promiscuity: impersonal relationships based on feigned intimacies lacking moral integrity…[speaking about day-trading] promiscuity increases with the use of information technologies. Zigzagging in and out of the markets, they might not even care about the ethics of the companies involved; a corporation know for producing faulty products can be just as 'good' a stock play as a business with a social conscience (35).

From business to sex, informationism emphasizes amoral observation over virtuous intimacy. As ovservers in this digital arena, we are apt to see the world merely as a video game meant to be played for our own short-term pleasure--and if we find cheat codes, we will not hesitate to use them. Speed and success are more important than intimacy and discernment. If instead we become intimate participants in culture, we will see the world as an ecology in which we must reside responsibly. John Lukacs suggests that true knowledge is 'participant.' It 'consists of the relationship of the knower and the known.' Intimacy requires us to live harmoniously with others whom we both know and respect (36).

Daniel Boorstin suggests that Americans live in 'statistical communities' that define culture in quantitative terms, from economic data to demographic trends and social norms. When we adopt informationism, we see the world increasingly through the lenses of measurable norms, means, causes, and effects (35).

Our belief in the power of cybernetic systems to improve our world ultimately rests on the faith that our use of information technologies will make us better human beings. Computer programs that enable machines to beat humans at games of chance and skill are indeed impressive. But moral questions about human life are beyond the interpretive scope of information technologies…Machines will never understand the intimate meaning of existence, the moral nature of human life, the joy of relationships, and the goodness of responsible action. We are not designed as mere informational beings but as moral creatures who can pursue virtue (42).

No matter how many information technologies we devise, we cannot fashion them humanly unless we direct them toward coherent moral purposes. What is the telos to which our technologies should be aimed?...We congratulate ourselves for our informational accomplishments, but the real benefits or drawbacks of such innovations, in distinctly moral terms, elude us (43).

If human life is not intrinsically meaningful, we are all machines with no moral compass and no responsibilities (43).

The truth is that informationism divides human knowledge into bits of information devoid of moral meaning. We justify cyber-technologies in terms of our greater ability to collect and analyze information for the purposes of prediction and control. Numbers speak. Data impress. Measurements connote certainty. We even accept isolated technological facts as yardsticks for social progress, such as the number of television channels, the percentage of the population wired to the Internet, and the bandwidth of our digital connections. All such technological expansion symbolizes a greater human ability to socially engineer progress. We love information, and we cannot get enough of it (44).

Camelback Trout Sighting

Well, you may remember that we mentioned the Song of the Camelback Trout last week - Wednesday night rolled around and Jeff and I performed (ready or not, here we come). And it was a lot of fun. Thanks to those of you who came out, and thanks to the Westminster Student Association for giving us this opportunity. For those who might have missed it, here's a couple of photos (courtesy of Janine!):

Christian & Marilyn on guitars/vocals

Jeff on djembe & Bert on bass

The whole thing was an awful lot of fun. We made some mistakes, the sound setup wasn't perfect, etc, but overall things went well. I didn't break a string or lose my voice; Jeff is great on drums, and Bert is simply amazing on the fretless bass. There is always something special about being able to make music together - to share it with others makes it even more special.

Speaking of sharing, Ryan K actually recorded it (thanks man!) - nothing fancy, just capturing the main output to disk (which means we didn't pick up the bass very well). If you'd like to give it a listen, it's available here (77 MB). That said, please keep in mind that it's very rough - there's no editing, so you get to hear us try and remember what to say in between songs, you'll here me flub and start over, the levels aren't set real well (one of the drum mics is too hot; the bass is too low), etc.

In other words, it'll sound like you're listening to a bootleg. And if you can handle all that, you just might hear the camelback trout singing somewhere in the background...

Couple of technical notes-to-self as I've listened to the recording and reflected on the experience:

• a) there's a big difference between playing a couple of songs in a talent show and actually being the whole show - I'm generally quite comfortable playing in front of people; but I was much more nervous than I expected and actually found myself worrying while I was playing (trying not to forget lyrics, trying to remember what comes next, etc). And that causes everything to tighten up a bit, rather than flowing naturally.
• b) I was actually pretty pleased with how we sounded live (especially considering we didn't really have time to practice).
• c) after listening to is on tape, I wish we would have had more time to practice - if I could actually keep on tempo and not speed-up all the time, I think these would actually be some pretty decent songs.

Well, there's lots more that could be said, but there's no point boring you. What we'd really like to do is find a way to get 4-6 hrs in a studio and just record the whole thing all over - a couple of passes for each song, trying to get it on tempo, well balanced, and tighter on the vocals (in a good way) - with the goal being to cut a decent recording that wouldn't be painful to listen to. But time is short, (and cash is even shorter), so I'm not sure how this could happen. But it sure was fun anyway, and Jeff and I would both like to find a way to do more of this in the future.

If anyone actually listens to the whole thing, I'd be interested in knowing which songs you like best, and which you like least (eg. if we had to drop a couple of tunes, which should they be?). Any feedback would be appreciated...

Life and Love in a Fallen World

Divorce sucks. Remarriage can be even tougher (especially for the kids). But every now and then you get a glimpse of hope in the midst of life's hardness. Ryan K's mom recently posted on her "Dad". (HT: Ryan K)

Cancer and Toothaches

What does cancer have in common with a toothache? Read Libby Groves' excellent reflection on this very thing.

In the case of Al’s cancer, the whole thing seems so big, and beyond us, and mysterious, that it’s almost easier to think, “Well, God’s ways are higher than ours, and he knows how to bring great good, and blessing and glory out of very hard things, so we’ll just walk with him and see how he does that in this situation.” On the other hand, my stubborn tooth is such a piddly, insignificant, mundane thing that it wouldn’t necessarily occur to me to think of it as being in the same boat. Yet there I was on Wednesday wondering why the Lord would bother to hide my nerve from the needle rather than let the tooth get uneventfully crowned and forgotten about. That would make so much more sense to me. After all, we’ve got plenty going on right now, and lots of other things to think about and spend our time on besides me sitting in the dentist’s chair for hours, over and over.

And that began to be a clue. Too many things to do and think about…too many other things to “spend our time on”… Hmmm.

Do yourself a favor and go read the whole thing. It'll help keep things in perspective...