This week’s thoughts.

  • Redesigned our REACH Polska site- take a look at http://www.reachpolska.info – nothing too fancy, just "fresh" I 'spose. #
  • Crazy day, it is, it is. #
  • I really hate running late – but I liked the extra sleep! #
  • seriously the summer can't end… rain, rain, go away. #
  • is happy the Twitter God listened to me and made the rain go away today. 😉 #
  • internet offline at work 🙁 #
  • is happy that God is apparently on Twitter too! He read my morning plea for the rain to go away and the sun has returned to Portland!! #
  • Pondering Expectations #
  • Ready for The Forge tonight! #
  • Come visit us tonight at The Forge – East Hill's college and you adults group – 7pm (ok 2 b late) Youth Center! #
  • Totally just witnessed a drug deal go down… #
  • So glad to be home, and yet so tired so I'm not enjoying much, but glad nonetheless. #
  • A full weekend of prep stuff. #

Scot McKnight: Self in a Castle

This caught my eye while browsing my blog/news subscriptions today and so I thought I’d share it:

Shared by TravisM

This of course caught my eye, with the connection to Poland – just a snippet from another great Out of Ur article.

Leszek Kolakowski, a Polish philosopher who weakened Marxism’s grip on Eastern Europe, recently died. Few, I suspect, knew who he was. I consider myself fortunate to have read some of Kolakowski, one book being his scintillating sketch of the history of ideas by probing the central idea of twenty-three thinkers. That book is called Why is there Something Rather than Nothing? My own reading of it impressed me again with the connection of philosophers with their world. From Socrates to Kierkegaard, philosophers are products of their day.

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So are we. Which raises the profound problem of blinders when it comes to perceiving what is influencing us, and which raises the other profound problem of needing to understand our cultural blinders in order to break through them with the light of the gospel. Kolakowski’s chapters are short, and everything short when it comes to the history of ideas risks simplicities that mask nuance. I risk the same in what I am about to suggest: the current generation emerges out of a toxic combination of modernity and postmodernity.

In another context (the summer issue of Leadership Journal) I called the toxicity of the current generation a “self in a castle.” Modernity’s singular contribution to the history of ideas is individualism. David Bentley Hart gets this exactly right in his new rant against the flimsy ideas in new atheism when he writes:

“We live in an age whose chief value has been determined, by overwhelming consensus, to be the inviolable liberty of personal volition, the right to decide for ourselves what we shall believe, want, need, own, or serve” (Atheist Delusions, 21-22).

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There Is NO Virtual Church (Part 1)

This caught my eye while browsing my blog/news subscriptions today and so I thought I’d share it:

Shared by TravisM

Another fantastic thought provoking article, what exactly is “church” and how does the Church function today?

In the early 1950s when Robert Schuller and others across the nation combined a growing car culture with “Church,” they believed they were reaching a segment of the population traditional church wouldn’t or couldn’t. “Drive-In Church” allowed parishioners to hear a sermon, sing some songs, even receive communion and give—all without the fuss and muss of face-to-face interaction. Except for a through-the-window handshake from the pastor as they rolled away.

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And while they may have been able to point to a number of folks who “attended” that otherwise might not have, the question of what was being formed in these car congregations through limited interaction, a completely passive experience, and a consumer-oriented “Come as you want/Have it your way” message, meant that (thankfully) after a brief period of vogue, “Drive-In Church” has remained a niche curiosity.

The problem with the drive-in church model isn’t that it isn’t church—it’s that it is just “church” enough to be dangerous. What this almost-church does is park people in a cul-de-sac where they have access to the easiest and most instantly satisfying parts of church while exempting them from the harder and more demanding parts of community.

And while I’m glad such an absurdity has remained on the fringe, as I watch the discussion about “internet campuses” I can’t shake a certain feeling of deja vu.

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Afraid of confrontation?

I do not like confrontation, and even though I have found it to be necessary, and many times the best and most healthy thing to do, I find myself wanting to avoid it at all costs.  Sometimes, I still physically have tremors in a confrontational situation.  However, after resolving the conflict I am always grateful that I got to the bottom of it and found resolve.  I have a fairly strong belief which I live by, and it’s the idea that leaving things unresolved creates holes between people, and causes even the little things to eventually build up into feelings that take a long time to untangle.

In the Church this is even more critical and I believe it is a necessity if we want healthy churches.  I could go on and quote a lot of scripture, and I know it’s there but I’m too tired to go look it all up right now, yet these things are more of a learned idea then a studied one.  We don’t have much of a choice in the Church to avoid confrontation, we should be living together reconciling differences, and sharpening each other.  When we notice something of another person, we should be able to confront them in love. This last sentence though comes with a lot of weight, our culture doesn’t cultivate loving confrontation very well, if at all.

Instead of lovingly correcting, encouraging, or pointing out flaws, our culture likes to put people down, discourage, and give “last chances”.  It isn’t that a “last chance” is wrong, or even that it isn’t necessary at times – it’s that within the context of the Church that people get treated like the rest of the world.  Jesus didn’t say to give people a last chance (that’s his job), he directed us to do the most we can do here on earth to encourage people towards him.

I could write a whole lot more, and I probably will.  My last thought for tonight – without honest, loving, graceful truth-filled confrontation the Church can’t function as a light.  We need people to be built up, lovingly guiding, encouraging, and confronting.  If people are over promising and under delivering in the Church, that isn’t light producing, and it requires adjustment, and many times it will be you who needs to help adjust another part in the body.

A Journey from Seattle to Vancouver, B.C. on Public Transit

This caught my eye while browsing my blog/news subscriptions today and so I thought I’d share it:

Shared by TravisM

I’m a bit of a transit geek, and caught this – $12 to get to Vancouver, Canada (from Seattle) and a LOT of time!

New Flyer trolleybuses in Vancouver rush hour trafficNew Flyer trolleybuses in Vancouver rush hour traffic

It’s the perfect occasion for a transit adventure to Vancouver, B.C. The brand new Canada Line opens today at 1 pm for free rides until 9 pm. If you’re feeling adventurous and have the time, it is possible to travel from Seattle to Vancouver on public transit by making a series of transfers and some walking or cycling across the border. The journey costs $12 and takes at least 7.5 hours. Back in March, wanting to do a transit field trip up north, I decided to try the schedule on Evan Siroky’s Regional Transit Transfers page. The following (after the jump) is an account of my experience with lots of pictures!.

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Out of Context: Kara Powell

This caught my eye while browsing my blog/news subscriptions today and so I thought I’d share it:

Shared by TravisM

Another interesting article from Out of Ur…

From “Is the Era of Age Segregation Over?” an interview with Kara Powell in the current issue of Leadership.

speaker_powell.jpg

“[The church] realized in the 1940s that we were not offering teens enough focused attention. So what did we do? We started offering them too much. All of a sudden churches had adult pastors and youth pastors, adult worship teams and youth worship teams, adult mission trips and youth mission trips. And there’s a place for that. But we’ve ended up segregating–and I use that word intentionally–our kids from the rest of the church. Now we tend to think that we can outsource the care of our kids to designated experts, the youth and children’s workers…. I think the future of youth ministry is intergenerational.”

Kara Powell is the executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute at Fuller Theological Seminary and a former youth pastor. To read the rest of her interview in context, pick up the Summer 09 issue of Leadership journal or subscribe by clicking on the cover in the left column.

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This week’s thoughts.

  • at Ixtapa in Duvall then on our way back to PDX – good trip. #
  • Wha#zs the deal with the traffic on I-5 south between mile posts 100 and who knows where 🙁 #
  • Just finished 14 miles of 3rd gear or lower 🙁 #
  • Wow – came home to a huge surprise! Someone got us Rosetta Stone Polish levels 1, 2, & 3! Thank you Jesus! #
  • Back to work in PDX – Actually kinda missed this city – I think. It's taken more than 5 years to get to this point 🙂 #
  • Jak się masz? #
  • Our Drank is here! http://is.gd/2nkMP #
  • Yahoo! The IRS has accepted our "proof" of stuff – of course "Pending the area manager's approval", we should get a letter soon… w00t! #
  • Amazingly content and looking forward to much. #
  • Trusting people takes trusting God to a much higher level. The more we know our place w/ God the more we can trust people. #
  • Having a great weekend – and that's about all I have to say 🙂 #

This week’s thoughts.

  • We are in Seattle until the 16th – would love to connect with whomever we can while we are up here! Sorry we can't directly call everyone! #
  • has some thoughts share: : Fear and Surrender http://bit.ly/Uu65U #
  • We are in Seattle until the 16th – would love to connect with whomever we can while we are up here! Sorry we can't directly call everyone #
  • Had a fantastic dinner with Mark tonight – Thanks! #
  • Well, cyber peeps – I'm going offline for the night – Seattle is treating us well – still wanna meet w/ more SEA peeps though! Chime in. #
  • Working from Seattle, love the weather (the sun is out) and hoping to hang with someone tonight while my wife watches "classics" w/ her mom. #
  • Burning flesh – jjust stinks. #
  • Been in Seattle a full week and haven't even gotten downtown 🙁 #
  • Emma is going swimming today with Grandma! Then we're having dinner with old friends, good day it is – now if I can just finish all my … #
  • Is loving all the pictures from our friends that went to Berlin and Amsterdam – but honestly is very jealous/envious! #

Fear and Surrender

The potential of a person is not for other people to determine, it is only for other people to encourage.  Seeing a person be insecure, unable to talk, and unable to identify their own passions is something which stirs me to action.  My heart is moved and many times God’s voice clearly says “speak my truth” – the truth that all people have a purpose, and it’s more than they can imagine, and it scares them to death.  The risks involved are almost always the issue.  We can’t be stupid, we’ve been given knowledge for a reason, however, and the knowledge is a tool, not the means.  For me, faith comes into play when what I know God is asking, is impossible without Him.

Many times I realize that if I am dwelling on how God will come through, I just end up waiting longer and longer – it’s when I surrender, straight away or quickly after a quick panic, that God begins to show me/us the blessings – and usually it is in ways that I would never have done on my own.  Surrendering is the key, without surrender, it becomes a burden, and I know that once something feels like a burden I am not letting God be in control.  I have found these last few ideas to be the greatest confidence building tools for myself, and I have witnessed others take these steps and become amazing leaders as well.

Bottom line (not to be read as reducing to a pat Christian “answer”, but rather encompassing everything above into a thought producing idea for further pondering): When fear arises, what does God say?  Is it a risk to do what God asks?  When you address the fear speak with the authority you have been given (see the end of any of the Gospels and what Jesus says to the disciples, and us, the descendants)!