Summer Ramblings: Part 1

It's been a long time since I posted and I know that you all have missed my ramblings greatly. Let me apologize for not posting and offer a few explanations.

1. I have been working like a dog. I don't know how the full time sound guys at our company do it, I fear this summer will be the death of me. But if it doesn't kill me I'll have some good experiences and a life skill in case this ministry things doesn't work out =) .

2. Ding Dong the Houghton Laptop is dead. I would offer a "may it rest in peace" but I'm pretty sure that it is burning in laptop hell because it truly sucked. So yeah, I probably won't be posting with any consistency until I'm able to buy a new laptop. I think I'm going mac so we'll see how that goes.

With that said, on to "Summer Ramblings: Part 1"

I'll try to break things into chunks so that you can skip various parts if you want.

Since I last posted I have finished reading one of the books on my list and started two others not on my list. I have finished "The Final Quest" and have started "One the Incarnation" by St. Athanasius and "Ancient-Future Time" by Robert Webber.

--------------Book Review ------------------

"The Final Quest" is a good book. I would probably describe it as "The Great Divorce" meets "the Lord of the Rings." The imagery is beautiful and it has quite a bit of substance. I really liked it, however, I feel that I can't put the book in the same place in which I gather the author would like the book to be put. In the preface the author notifies the reader that the book is not fiction but rather the transcription of a series of 3 prophetic visions he had. Although he does not claim that this should be taken as Canon he does allude that it should be just a few notches below it on the authoritative ladder.

I have no problem with prophecy nor with visions, but I still feel, after reading the book that it has little more weight to it than Lewis' "The Great Divorce." Although nothing in the book was blatantly heretical, and there wasn't anything that screamed "false teaching" a few things did catch my eye.

If we take the premise that the book is fully prophetic and truly a vision of heaven, then I am completely blown away at the non-Trinitarian nature of heaven and the end times. I am not saying it was anti-Trinitarian, but other than Christ the other two members of the God-head were scarcely mentioned, if at all. This troubled me greatly. He mentioned the Trinity about as much a normal Sunday at a Baptist church (read: not at all). This is problematic because the doctrine of the Trinity is THE foundational doctrine of all of Christianity. If an accurate vision of heaven is that only Christ is around, then we have some deep theological problems. Either we've been believing wrong for about 2,000 years, or the vision is not fully revelatory. I would opt for the latter.

The other thing that caught my attention was the general emphasis of the book. Although many of the things that were written I would agree with, it was evident that the terminology and various emphasizes were from a particular tradition (namely the Pentecostal tradition) this does not make these things any less true or legitimate, but the things that were emphasized and the things that were glossed over definitely pointed out that this was coming through a socio-Pentecostal lens.

So that's my take on the book, it's a good read and it makes some good points. I'm sure those who are big lit buffs (ie. Gustav and the rest of you who can write coherently) would question the literary quality, but hey, I'm a theologian so I don't pay no mind to that.

------End Book Review------

I mentioned the other two books I've started to read, and I won't write long on them except to say that "On the Incarnation" by St. Athanasius is amazing. It is a must read for anyone. It's worth the price just to read the introduction by C.S. Lewis in the interpretation published by St. Vladimir's Press.

-------Experiences from a Sound Guy-------

Although I've been working my tail off at the Sound Company I work for, I've only been at two shows. I've done a lot of work for other shows, but things have come up and I've only been able to make it to two places for the show (granted one was a 3 day long Blue Grass festival). I find it interesting that in both of the shows I've been at I've been engaged in some sort of theological discussion. I'm not the type of person to start a random theological conversations with random people unless I know they're church people who like to talk about stuff like that (or my sister, I just like make her listen to me ramble, it's fun that's not to say that she's not a church person but that she just doesn't like theological conversations), but I have conversations at shows that have been initiated by others.

The first show was a Billy Currington (some country artist) in Lebanon, KY. I was working on the stage with his bass player and we started talking about NY because he just happened to be from Geneva, NY just outside of Rochester. Once he found out that seminary was the reason that I came down south he started asking if we were "liberal" or "conservative" and it turns out that I am just as disgusted with the "religious right" and the "moral majority" as is he. While he can't stand them because of his extreme political views, I can't stand them because they try to label Christianity by their political stances (well that and some of their moral views). We then proceeded to talk about same sex marriage and other social issues. I find it extremely sad that he defines Christianity by politics and groups that try to legislate morality. I fear that to many people outside of the church (and probably inside as well: Jimmy Dobson and the like) Christianity is nothing more than a political force driven by greed and power just as much as any other political force. I find this notion disgusting and am sickened by those in Christendom that play so much politics that they forget was Christianity is truly about.

The second conversation was at the Blue Grass festival (FYI: Blue Grass is freakin sweet!!). The head guy started to engage me because he saw me reading a lot of theological articles while I was babysitting the light board at the show. Our conversation boiled down to the fact that he appreciated Christianity and liked to see young people be committed, but he sees so much power play and greed involved that he can't move past the notion that humans have corrupted this thing and thus it holds little to no truth. All in all this guy was just a regular run of the mill pluralistic deist. I find it interesting how his perspective allows him to love and sing along with the old blue grass gospel songs and yet see no truth in them. I also find it intriguing that he looks at history and sees nothing but corruption and I look at history and see God's preservation of the orthodox faith in spite of the massive corruption.

I know my stories make me sound heartless because I seem to me analyzing them on a purely intellectual level, but my heart really does break for these people. Even more my heart breaks for the thousands like them that know the church as greedy and self idolaterous, people who reject the faith, because the church has allowed herself to become syncritized with the American/world consumer culture and fall away from the faith handed down through the generations.

----------------

There is so much more going through my mind, and I'll try to bum one of my housemates computers to blog about them soon. I'm still working on sorting them out so that there at least coherent enough to blog about. So in the future look for one of these exciting topics:

- My Ecclesiological paradigmatic dilemma
- My church history musings
- Christianity in the South vs Christianity in the North thoughts
- Syncritism and American Christianity
- The "fluffy I" problem in Christian Music and in Worship music.
- another book review (when I finish them)
- more thoughts from work
- or who knows what.

Blessings to you all, and if you are too anxious and can't wait for me to get off my lazy butt and blog then just call my cell.

~Ben

Summer Reading List

My favorite part of the year is almost here. Summer is upon us, the semester is over (except for one massive final) and I'm starting to compile my summer reading list. I thought I'd share some of the books I'm planning on reading and ask for any suggestions on what else to read. I always end up planning on way more than I ever finish, but I think it's more fun that way. My list isn't too specific yet, but that's why I'm asking for suggestions.

Here's what I have so far:

- The Final Quest by Rick Joyner - suggested by my friend Jan
- Running Against the Wind by Brian Flynn - Suggested by my mom
- Finally finishing The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- On Being a Christian by Hans Kung

Those are the titles I've decided on. I also include at least one or two books by A. W. Tozer (as if you had any doubt) on my summer reading list but I have yet to select the titles. I also like to balance any contemporary reading I do with at least one early church father or mother for every three contemporary books I read. So I need to put those titles in, but I'm still trying to figure out what fathers and mothers I want to read. For the fathers and mothers I'm leaning toward St. Cyprian, St. Athanasius, St. Chrysostom, Macrina the Younger and (although she's not technically an early church mother) St. Teresa Avila.

So those are my thoughts. Please send me suggestions, they don't need to be theological, shoot I may even try to tackle The Da Vinci Code before I go to see the movie this summer. I'm looking to expand my horizons and feed my soul, anything that will do either one is a welcome suggestion.

Blessings,

Ben

Current?

This post has been in my mind for a while, and thus I finally decided to write it. [edit: I penned most of this right after Christmas/January break 1/29 to be exact, and didn't post it because it wanted to edit it. So now I am doing it. Any significant thoughts that I add will be indicated in brackets and italics.] [edit 2: I reposted it but it posted way down on the list so i'm changing the date and reposting it.]

The thoughts started while I was reading Os Guinness' Prophetic Untimeliness, a book that Kyle Nagy recommended to me a year or so ago. I decided to read it over Christmas break and am just finishing it up. [edit: at the end of January]

As I read the introduction I felt as if I was reading my own blog... Well at least the thoughts from my blog put in coherent sentence structure by an Oxford educated man. The thoughts that I am talking about are the ones in the post entitled Postmodernism and other similar posts.

Although I saw some similarities between my post and Os' introduction there was also a difference, namely, that while I was critiquing our emphatuation with Postmodernism, he was critiquing modernism or more specifically our view of time. He did this, ironically without embracing Postmodernism, yay!!

Guiness argues that we are too caught up in being relevant or as he phrases it "timely." Basically what it says is that we place way to much importance on staying current. This caused me to wonder about that nature and the development of theology in recent decades or even centuries.

It seems to me that so many theologians today are busy trying to come up with a new idea or trying to discuss the latest trend that they forget what made the great Christian thinkers of the past great - the trial of Church history. We bounce from idea to idea and consider men like Pinnock, Sanders, Piper, Pagit, and so many others to be great thinkers and the new standard for where theology is going. We hold them up with the great minds of Christian antiquity like St. Athanasius, Augustine, Aquinas, and Ignatius, forgetting that it wasn't the fact that Augustine and the rest came up with great ideas that made them great, rather it was that their ideas lasted the test of time. They were forged in Church history! Their ideas slowly progressed throughout the church and were slowly approved of by the masses of Christians throughout the world.

Today we dialogue about ideas in seconds and publish articles after a month or a year of thought. Once these things are published, Pastors, laity, and students who strive to be on the "cutting edge" grab ahold of them like they've found the Holy Grail. There is no sense of historical community, no trial by fire. We don't allow time for these ideas to circulate through the church and and be approved or repudiated by the masses.

One chief example of this is Open Theism. Clark Pinnock published a book and so did a couple of his friends, their ideas spread through the seminaries and Christian colleges like crazy. The ideas were new and trendy and it seems that may decided to embrace the idea because it appeared to "work" and it was the new thing.

There was little dialogue on this concept done in the churches, this concept was strictly and ivory tower debate among scholars. There was no time given for this idea to pass through the godly saints of the church, the masses of saints who are out of touch with scholarly circles. It was simple, they had an idea, the published the idea and now there are many open theists around the globe.

Suppose this process had been the case with Arianism back in the early centuries of the church (300-500ad). We would have surely had a problem on our hands. Suppose for a moment that Arias had and idea, wrote a book and published it. Suppose the communication was as quick as it is now. Arianism would have spread geographically to all parts of the church. The Orthodox faith of the Trinity would have been attacked from all sides [This is not to say that Arianism has not spread, but rather to say that it's spread was contained by the filter of Christian Saints testing and approving (or in this case disapproving) this teaching.]

I wonder, if open theism had been proposed in the early centuries of the church (say 300-500ad) would the Fathers and Mothers of the faith have been so willing to accept it without a moments notice? Wouldn't it have taken years to discuss and dialogue. [I think this is just one example where we run into danger by our emphasis on staying current and relevant. I'm not saying (yet) that Open Theism is a heresy (although it's right on the edge), but because this teaching is so new and so incredibly 'original' we should be very wary. This is just one example.]

[Along these same lines, is something that I briefly touched on above. Namely that I think scholars and those of us who run in scholarly circles often find more joy in coming up with a new thought or idea than we do when we internalize an important truth about God. I find this is especially the case with Protestant scholarship. The Protestant community has long forgotten that any church history happened before Luther nailed his infamous 95 Theses to the Door of the Wittenberg Cathedral. We have allowed ourselves to ignore church history and the teaching of the great cloud of witness that has preserved the scriptures through the ages. We emphasize the latest trends and hot topics and forget that if something is new it should be tested and weighed heavily. In fact some Saints of the church held to the belief that if there was anything new in their writing then it must be discarded at once (cf. Tozer, C.S. Lewis). We feel that in the name of good scholarship that we can treat the text how we want, this however is absurd. We have been handed the scripture through the witness of generations of Christians before us, what makes us think that we, being increasingly more removed from Christ's earthly life, have superior insight into what he really said. Yes we may gain some better insights and understanding through the analysis of texts and recent discoveries, but if anything is truly different than what the church has believed for centuries then what real good is it?]

[I think I rambled a bit there in the last paragraph and didn't really express my thoughts clearly. I'm tempted to put off posting these thoughts until I can better refine them but as the story of this post accounts, that may not be a good idea, as I probably won't get around to it again until July. So I guess I'll leave the thoughts as they are. They're a work in progress and as always I open myself up to your insights and thoughts on the matter. Maybe I'm completely off base or maybe I hit the nail right on the head, who knows. ]

Maran atha - Come our Lord!

I just finished classes for the day/week (I don't have classes on Friday or Monday) and I was back here in my apartment and had one of those awesome moments where the Spirit just falls on you in a special way, where you are completely just blown away in the goodness of the Holy Spirit and he just is pouring in and out of you. I wasn't really doing anything special, in fact, I was just fixing dinner and came back to my computer to put up an AIM away message and it just happened, it was completely unexpected, but it was so good. All this to say, that as the Holy Spirit was ministering to me I felt prompted to write something. I guess you could call it a poem or something akin to a poem, or maybe you could call it a short hymn because the substance is very similar to the Christ Hymns in the New Testament. I don't write stuff like this often, in fact the last time I wrote anything like this was 9/24/05 and the last time I wrote something like this in the Spirit was 8/3/05. The quickest place I could go to write it down was in an away message window, so if you happen to read it here and there, I'm sorry for being redundant. So here it is, I post not to share 'my art' or to show you what 'I've done' but to share what the Spirit seemed to be breathing into me. I hope that it ministers to you and helps you exalt Christ.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Maran atha we cry aloud - Come Lord Jesus!!
We truly long for you like a bride waiting for her groom.
You are the preincarnate One, true God of true God,
made flesh to suffer and die, a bloody sacrifice for the redemption of humanity.
You were exalted to the right hand of the Father and intercede for us now, your beloved!
You are truly worthy to be praised! You are the very wisdom of God, the glorious Son,
worthy to be exalted with the Father and the Holy Spirit now and forevermore! Amen.
- BH 4/27/06
--------------------------------------------------------------

Flee to the Eucharist!

Is one of my favorite quotes by Robert Webber. I love the imagery and the power of thinking about fleeing to the cup and the bread to meet Christ and to partake in his suffering and death.

Today at our weekly mid-week Eucharist chapel I had an unusual experience concerning 'fleeing to the Eucharist.'

As a sound person I am use to getting neglected during most services and especially during communion. I rarely get served and usually end up having to serve myself after the service is over. Well today, like many others, i was forgotten and I planned on going to partake in the sacrament after the service was over. Well, just as I was walking down the stairs someone came and took all the bread and one of the cups away. So I had to hastily walk (cause i didn't want to make a huge scene) after her to get the Eucharist.

I just thought this was a funny story, especially when I remember Webber's quote. It turns out sometimes you have to literally flee after the Eucharist, as well as flee to it.

On Easter

So Becca asked me to post some thoughts on Easter (cf. The comments under the "Beaux Arts Ball" post) and I really don't feel like I have anything profound to write about. So I hope I don't disappoint anyone with the lack of profound insights but here are some of my thoughts ranging from Easter and the events surrounding Easter.

As weird as it may seem, I'm actually sort of sad that lent is over. I know, it's weird, a time of mourning and fasting a time where the church has traditionally (mainly the Catholics and not the Orthodox or Protestants) prohibited the use of "Hallelujah" - you wouldn't think I'd be sad about this time ending. Especially with the fact that Lent ends on my favorite Church holy-days of all time - Easter Sunday. Don't get me wrong, I love the joyful time of living in Eastertide (the season after Easter and before Pentecost) I love Easter, and I don't particularly enjoy fasting, but I still am sort of sad that Great and Holy Lent is over. There is something very special about traveling through life in those 40 days of intense concentration and humility. There is something unique about living out 40 days in a mystical desert. Maybe it's that I learned a lot during this Lent, maybe it's that I like the somber feel of it, I'm not really sure, but I do know that I am torn between the joy of Eastertide and the ache of Lent. I think that's why both of these are so essential to our church calendar (something a majority of Protestantism has completely neglected).

Easter was great though. Although I spent a lot of the weekend on the road, driving back home and then back to KY, it was good to get home and visit family and friends. It was interesting being back in a protestant church, but I don't think I could have picked a better situation. I love my home pastor and I don't know if I've ever met a better pastor than he. I only wish that he would have came to Port while I was still a full-time attender there. It was definitely different, but good to be back. I also find it hard to sit in a pew on a Sunday like Easter Sunday. There is so much joy and so much energy just flowing through me it was all I could do just to remain silent and sit in the pew. I so badly wanted to just get up and start preaching. This isn't to say that Pastor Beckley did a bad job, on the contrary, he did an excellent job as always, but there is so much I want to convey that it still pains my heart to be silent in church - especially in a protestant church. I think it pains me more in a protestant church because I know that I can serve there. In the Orthodox Church I attend I know from the outset that I have no authority and it would be wrong for me to speak as one with authority to these people so it doesn't really burn within me as much there, but when I go to a protestant church I just want to shout it out.

I don't want to critique Pastor Beckley because as I said his sermon was heartfelt and truly a word from the Lord, but I feel like the things that were running through my heart and mind were not conveyed how I would convey them. This is probably just a difference in personalities, but either way it gives me a small opportunity to pontificate here.

What my heart wanted to scream was along these lines although these are admittedly very raw ideas that would need some polishing. And this "list" is by no means meant to symbolize any of my thoughts of Pastor Beckley's sermon.

Although the Church does a good job at celebrating Easter I feel we do a poor job of internalizing Easter. I wanted to scream and shout at the top of my lungs, I wanted to convey the truth that Easter is not just the rising of Christ. Easter is the beginning of the end of time. The pinnacle of human history happened that Easter Sunday 2,000 years ago. Jesus Christ conquered death and with that he initiated the final age of the world. His resurrection does not just mark the start of a movement, but truly was (as the gospel writers indicate) the highest point of all human history. This is it! This is all we could ever hope for and imagine. God enfleshed conquering death, conquering sin! I wish I could convey the excitement that fills my heart as I meditate on this and write these words. I am just baffled every year at how the Church can just go about her Easter 'celebration' in such a nonchalant way. This is the essence of everything we are and hope to be. We live in this reality. We worship because of this event. We can have hope in life and amidst death because of this glorious act. I can't even describe the joy and excitement in my heart. That's why I want to scream and shout. I want to help people to realize what this means for them, for the church, for humanity. This isn't just something that happened and is over. This is a living reality! Christ did not rise (completed past tense) but "he is risen" (past action that continues through to the present). So many Christian's treat Easter with no excitement, no joy and no holy fear and trembling. It's like we pass the same judgment on the celebration of Easter that Pope Benedict (I think it was Benedict or maybe John Paul) said of Mel Gibson's Passion - "it is was it is." How can we live in such apathy toward the highest holy day of the year? "It just baffles me" (and yes that was a Madden reference). My heart is warmed every time I think on these things. I don't understand it and it brings me to the verge of tears - both of sadness and frustration. Sadness because of the state of the church and frustration because I don't know how, as a future minister, to convey this joy to people. How can we do it? How can we help people to realize that this is it! This is our life-long curriculum. We are called to live and to learn in the shadow of the cross and the empty tomb everyday of our Christian lives.

This life-long learning about how to live in the reality of Easter is why it is so vitally important for us to remember that every Sunday, every Sunday of the year is like a mini-Easter. This is why the ancient Christians decided that we should meet on Sunday rather than the Sabbath (Saturday). They knew that Easter was the center of life and thus every week we meet and celebrate the resurrection as a community of faith. We learn the curriculum of the resurrection every Sunday, or at least that's what Church is supposed to be. [This could be a launching point for some of my anti-church growth/seeker church sentiments but we'll save that for another day, but feel free to insert them yourselves.] We are people of the resurrection, that is our identity, and that is how we ought to define ourselves. Is it any wonder that the early believers greeted one another with the statement "he is risen" and the response "he is risen indeed." This didn't start as a Easter Sunday ritual, it started as an everyday ritual to identify believers. We are identified by the resurrection! This is who we are and thus it should effect every ounce of our being - especially the way we remember the resurrection.

So I guess I had more thoughts on Easter than I realized, they're more just out of the normal "Easter meditations" box.

~ Ben

Beaux Arts Ball

On saturday I worked a show in Lexington called the "Beaux Arts Ball" and after talking about it with Eryn I think it has given me a new perspective on postmodernism. To understand that point though I need to do a brief description of the Ball.

The Ball is basically a masquerade rave. The costumes varried quite a bit, a few examples are: tetris blocks, S&M gear, rabbit suits, and stategically placed duct tape. The people were mainly 20-30 something with the few exceptions of older people in their 40s and 50s. The events for my stage were as follows:

8:30-10:30 - 1st DJ
10:30-11:15ish - Drag Show (fashion show with drag queens)
11:20-2:00am - 2nd DJ (with a fashion show at the begining)

To describe the event a little more it was basically a dark room with loud techno music with people "dancing" all over each other. It's hard to describe it without getting really graphic, but lets just say that I saw guys kissing guys, girls kissing girls, and guys kissing girls, I saw people wearing nothing but dog collars and chainlink thongs, and a bunch of other stuff. So the event was truly eclectic, to put it one way.

Ok, hopefully that gives you at least some picture of the event.

The event definetly transcended my normal experiences and was eye opening. I think the saddest part was the Drag Show and they way the croud reacted. When these women came on stage (they do like to be called women) the crowd (about 1,500-2,000 people) reacted to them with more excitement and more zeal than rock stars normally get by their screaming fans. It wasn't just the gay men that were excited but everyone was cheering them on with and was excited to see them "strut their stuff"(for lack of a better descriptor). It made me sad to see these men who found their fulfillment in dressing and acting like women, and buying into the lie of society. It almost made me cry, it was sad because they really seemed to be enjoying who they "were." Now obviously I tried to justify their joy by saying, 'well i bet they're really broken, they probably cry to themselves a lot, they probably aren't really happy, they're probably hurting really bad on the inside.' But ya know what, I can't make those kind of qualifications. That's just a stereo type I've been taught by society since I was young. These people may be truly happy with who they are, yes they're lost, they need Jesus, they're flling themselves with lies, but they may be happy with being drag. It was thinking back on this and the rest of the event that led me to my thoughts about postmodernism. Yes I'm finally getting to the point.

The experience was wierd, and my mind has images in it that I wish weren't there, but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything, i mean i really think that this event typifies a whole segment of the population, i think this was post modern america, not what we vaguely concieve of as postmodernism. I guess my thoughts on this issues aren't as formed as I would like them to be, but it just seems that we treat postmodernism like it's something that we can look at and examine in a lab. I feel like what we concieve of didn't match up at all with what I observed saturday night. I'm entirely sure how to describe the difference, but I know there was one and it seems to me that after observing these differences these people do not need postmodern ministries. They don't need us to understand postmodernism they don't need us to keep talking about it as if it's a static reality that we can fix once we crack the code. This is a whole group of society, they're all governed by different assumptions and different things make them tick, they may be postmodern, they may be modern, who cares, they are lost and broken people. What they need is for the church to stop dialogue over how best to reach them and to start being the church. They don't need the church to create new lame ministries that will reach to their inherent postmodern philosophies (or lack thereof) but what they need is for the church to be the church.

We spend all our time, especially in academia trying to asses the culture, asses the postmodern world thinking that we can crack this code, churches can implement the solution and then all the culture's probelems along with ours will be solved. Can we not see past this ridiculous fallacy? All the church was ever asked to be from God was the church. All we were asked to do was love God and love others. Creating postmodern christian raves is not the answer, creating christian coffehouses isn't the answer, sure they may be fun and good, but the answer is to renew the church, to call the people of God to set their focus on one thing and one thing alone - Loving God. We need to abandon, what seems to me to be, our faulty conception of postmodernism and embrace intimate love with the Holy Triune God, rather than embrace a newer more accurate conception of postmodernism.

I guess these really aren't new thoughts. I feel I've said this same thing before. I feel these people looked more like true postmodernism than what we concieve it to be. I don't know exactly how to describe it (for that I apologize), but I do believe that it doesn't matter how this differes from our conception, as long as we focus on being the real church, which is by nature overflowing with love.

~ Ben

Not a Lenten thought

Although this occured during lent, I don't think it qualifies as a "lenten thought" per se.

As you all know I am not very fond of people that I consider heretics posing as orthodox christians, such as Joel Osteen.

I know that many of you probably have a similar disdain for their teaching and so I thought I'd take a short minute to refer you to Dr. Witherington's newest blog post entitled "What's Wrong With Prospering? The Gospel Accroding to Joel Osteen." Witherington does a fine job commenting on the problems with Osteen's theology and I think that he offers a better critique than I have or could at this time.

I don't want to imply that I'm becoming a Witherington disciple, but the man is brilliant and he continues to amaze me. He also has a unquenchable passion for Christ and for the church. Yes, I do disagree with him on some issues, and to be truthful he does come across as arogant sometimes, but I feel that some of his arogance may be passion misconstrued. All that to say, that not only do I find his classes heart warming and his book enlightening, but I also find his blog stimulating and encouraging. Plus it's really fun when fundamentalists comment and he tears them to shreds.

But the main reason I say this is to draw your attention to the Osteen article, but also to encourage you to check it out if you find yourself with some spare time. I found the post previous to the Osteen article to be amazing. I thought the poem was very well written.

The link is over to the right on the bottom of the links section incase you didn't notice.

Peace.

Lenten lesson 101

Ok, so there have been so many things I've wanted to post about since lent started but haven't had the time to sit down and write out a long post. Hopefully I'll post on them later, but I wanted to post this quick thought while it's fresh. I attend St. Athanasius Orthodox Church in Nicholasville, KY on Sundays and find the liturgy to be incredibly meaningful. During lent we are using the Liturgy of St. Basil and in one of the sections there is a place for a different song to be sung each Sunday. This isn't like special music, the whole service is singing except the sermon, this is more like instead of singing "O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing" at the start of every school year at Houghton they mixed it up once in a while with "And Can it Be." As I stood there yesterday listening to the choir (again not like typical protestant choirs) sing the song I heard these words. I'll try to quote them the best I can.

"The flaming sword of Eden has been extinguished by the wood of the cross...enter in to paradise!"

Isn't that beautiful! The imagery just fills my heart. Only with God could something so paradoxical become a reality. Wood extinguishing fire? Death bringing life in paradise? These are not intuitive things. Truly the cross is foolishness and a stumbling block and yet all the more we proclaim Christ and him crucified! Just as the first Adam's actions removed us from paradise, so the second Adam's actions allow us to reclaim it, or better yet, recieve a new one.

Amen. Come Lord Jesus.

Thoughts on Ash Wednesday

Just some short thoughts from Ash Wednesday.

Today in chapel we had the traditional imposition of ashes. When the ashes were imposed on my forehead in the sign of the cross these words were spoken to me (or at least very close to these) "from dust you came, to dust you will return, now go and live in the shadow of the cross." Wow, such powerful words. Ash Wednesday is about us, about our sin, and about God breaking into history through the incarnation to mend the brokenness and redeem humanity.

One "profound" thing that really struck me today was this. I often forgot I had ashes on my forehead during the day. It was often only when I saw the cross on someone else's forehead that I remembered that I too was living in the reality of being marked by the cross. It seems to me that this experience beautifully symbolizes the body of Christ. Sometimes when things get rough or when life gets hard we forget that we are living lives that are marked by the cross. We forget that we are really the living dead because "those who are baptized are already dead" (JD Walt). Sometimes it takes the community of faith, the great cloud of witnesses, to remind us of the shadow that we live in. Oh that the true cross that we carry was as visible to everyone as the ashes that we wear on our foreheads. We are truly a people marked by the cross, that is what our baptism represents, that is the pinnacle of our existence. We are people of the cross! May that marking permeate all aspects of our lives.

LENT!!

Lent starts tomorrow!

Yes that's right tomorrow is Ash wednesday. I never understood the church seasons or the various holidays other than Christmas and Easter, until my junior and senior years at Houghton. I have now come to embrace the Christian Calendar as a means to focus and live the Christian life throughout the year. After reflecting on the Christian Year for a little while now I have come to realize that Lent is by far my favorite season and Easter my favorite holiday.

I love the stark, somber mood that inhabits lent as we "descend to the cross with Christ" as JD Walt said in chapel the other day. We start our descent on Wednesday with the imposition of ashes (tomorrow will be my second time) and maintain our time of reflection through prayMer and fasting until Easter Sunday when we loudly exclaim CHRIST IS RISEN!! HE IS RISEN INDEED!!

Praise the Lord!! Amen!

I hope to post some lenten thoughts throughout the 40 days (not counting sundays), but we'll see how that goes as I have a NT Theology paper due for Dr. Witherington in a month. But for now, I just wanted to share my joy and excitement that Lent is here and Easter is coming.

Isn't it a great reminder of the reality that we live in. Just as before Easter the earth cried out for atonement, so it is after Easter that the earth cries out for the return of the King.

And so my soul yearns within me, and crys out even more during this time of year - MARANATHA - Come Lord Jesus!!!

In Response

This post is more a response to the comments that were posted concerning the post entitled "Is it really too much to ask?!"

First let me say that I'm not saying that the Church has never had problems until now, and I'm not saying that all churches are bad. My point is not that I haven't found a church to suit me, rather the point is a lament for the state of the church, especially the western church.

The church has had its problems, and I suspect will continue to have problems, but I also feel that a strong case can be made that Christianity in North America is at one of the lowest points in all of Church history. I lament this fact, I lament the easy Christianity and pseudo-psycho-babble-pop Christianity that I see all over the place. I hear sermons on how to have less stress, or how to be successful in life. I see churches teaching doctrines that involve merely being happy and being driven by the purpose of self-fulfillment. Can you seriously tell me that this is Christianity? Can you say that this is the powerful word of the Lord? Does this in any way resemble the Kingdom of God that Jesus spent his whole ministry teaching about? By no means does this in any way, shape, or form look like, true Christianity.

This is my lament. I ache over the fact that the church is in such a sour state that it is neither cool nor hot. The gospel much of the church is preaching is like what Tozer says - if it were medicine it would be too weak to cure anyone and if it were poison it would be too weak to kill anyone. (paraphrase)

What shall we as members of the body of Christ do about this betrayal of Kingdom ethics and values.

To address the critique raised by Sam - "maybe we should just trust that Christ will redeem his bride as is written, no? And that...The battle has already been won, by Christ."

Although the point is a decent one, that he caps off with a call to just living in mercy. This seems to be too far of an apathetic stance. Can we just sit by and watch the church self-destruct? Can we sit there while heresy and false teaching spread like cancer through the whole body of Christ? Granted it is true that the true church will not fall, but how can we say we love the church and do nothing when she is in no way a resemblance of who she is called to be?

I pray often for the purity of the Church, I pray that the chaff that fills the buildings every Sunday will be made pure first and foremost, but if not then be cleansed away. I pray for persecution to come upon the western church. Not because I'm some sadist who loves to see people injured and dead, but because I firmly believe that if you are not willing at a moment's notice to give your life and sacrifice everything for the sake of Jesus Christ, then you have no business calling yourself a Christian and claiming to be the church.

But we must not only pray for the purity of the Church, we must use the gifts that God has given us. We cannot sit idly by and credit our apathy with the fact that Christ will prevail and all will be right in the end. Christ will prevail indeed! Praise the Lord! But until then he has charged us, the body of Christ, to use our gifts to edify one another and build up the church in his image. We must always fight for the purity of the people of God. We must use our gifts of encouragement, healing, prophecy, tongues, etc. For the edification of the body. It is when we do that and stop living in this bismal state of the church that we will truly be on fire for God. And as Wesley said, when one man is ignited aflame for the Lord hundreds more [unbelievers] will come just to see him burn. (paraphrase) Then our witness will be pure. Then we will live in love, and mercy, and compassion.

The call is to the Church now! Prepare ye the way of the Lord! We cannot avoid our call to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord and to shout at the top of our lungs, REPENT! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand!!

That is our call, that is why I lament over the church. I love the church and I see her potential. Yes, she has always had her problems, she will continue to struggle because she is made up of humans, but with the Spirit filling her, she can be pure and spotless and ready for the coming of the Bridegroom!

Just one final disclaimer, I don't' speak these words because I'm one of those crazy kooks who thinks that the coming will be within the next 15 years when Russia invades Israel. I say this because this has always been the message of the Church. Just as her hearts cry must always be: MARANATHA - COME LORD JESUS!!

Question

So the last time I worked a country show I had some theological thoughts to post. Well, I just worked another show at the same bar with another country band and I have some more thoughts. These however are neither profound nor theological. In fact it's more one question rather than a set of thoughts. So if you all will allow me a rare deviation from my theological ponderings I will put out a question that I hope some of you may be able to answer.

Here is the question:

Why do they always put mirrors behind bars? Is it just to make the room look bigger? Why is it?

Ok, that's my question and my rare non-theological thought for the blog. I'm sure I'll post another one in another 4 or 5 months.

Is it really to much to ask?!

I just got back from yet another failure at finding a church. I think I'm beginning to lose hope. Since I've moved here to Wilmore I've visited 14 different churches, and some of them more than once. That's right, I have been in Wimore for 19 Sundays and have visited 14 different churches and have yet to find one that is good (yes, I know good is really arbitrary).

You may be thinking that I'm just too picky, or that I'm just buying into the consumeristic notion of "church shopping," but I feel it's more than that. I feel that it's something deeper.

All I'm really asking for is a Church that shifts the focus from us to God, a church that calls its congregants into a deep and loving relationship with God. I'm looking for a church that isn't married to American consumerism or Republican politics. I'm asking for a church that preaches the hard prophetic word of the Lord in a loving way, one that doesn't water down the message of the cross and the cost of discipleship in order to be "seeker friendly." I long to find a church that truly meets with God instead of meeting with each other in a valiant grasp to look religious and fulfill some preconceived notion of what it means to be a Christian. It would be great if I found a church where the gifts of the Spirit were actually used and not just talked about, where women were actually encouraged to be in ministry and not just theologized about being in ministry.

I've come to the conclusion that a church like this doesn't exist. I've known that for a while, but seriously, I would settle for any small combination. I really just want a place where I can serve God and others, where people are actually passionate about God and interested in knowing him more intimately every day. I don't care about worship styles, I don't care about size (although I bet my changes are better with a small church), I really don't care what denomination, I just want a place to encounter God with fellow believers who are seeking God.

Maybe I can't gauge a church on a one Sunday visit; maybe I need constantly remember that John Stott is right when he says "Every church in every place at every time is in need of reform and renewal. But we need to beware lest we despise the church of God and are blind to his work in history."

Do I hate the church? No! May God forbid it! Although, I use to hate the church, I hated the church for 2 or 3 years, from a senior in High School to a sophomore at Houghton. Then I read Stott's quote while leading a Lifeline group. I don't hate the church, on the contrary; I love the Church. I love the Church more than you could ever believe. That's why my heart breaks every week. Every week when I hear pastors speak mere fluff, wasting away their precious minutes to convey a life-changing truth from God. It breaks when I hear congregations sing half-heartedly about "how good Jesus makes me feel," when I take communion with believers that have no concept of the grace given during the Holy Eucharist. I want to scream and shout, I want to weep and wail. Every week I feel like I'm going to die, I feel like I want to die. I feel like the Church is dead and there is no hope for it. I think it's for this reason that I burn with anxiousness to get out of seminary and to go minister. The church is dying, or maybe it's already dead... can anyone save it? I realize I can't do it in and of my own desire and ambition. I realize that it is by the grace and power of the Most High that the church must be resurrected out of its ashes like the phoenix of lore.

I'm beginning to think that maybe the best thing right now is for me to finish the training that God has set before me and then I will be better equipped to tackle the small portion of the monumentous task that God will give me. Yes, I'll do what I can now, but maybe training is essential. But what if I miss the fight? I feel like an anxious soldier waiting for his chance to see some action. What if the fight is over by the time I get out of here in 3 or 4 years? The sad part is that I doubt it will be over. The church is in trouble and unless the hand of God reaches and raises up his bride form the muck and the mire, she will continue to wallow in it for a long number of years.

I'm not saying that I've made my decision to stay in seminary, nor am I saying that I've given up fighting until I'm out. I'm just saying that we have an uphill battle and it will take much work, prayer, and probably a good old fashioned persecution to bring the Church back to be the pure bride that she once was.

Until that day, it seems that my only solace can be found in the words of Thomas Oden, from his book The Living God. Oden says: "Even when preachers are heretics, as long as they celebrate Holy Communion in due order, the liturgy is not invalidated, and the rite itself performs the ironic task of contradicting what has been badly taught."

I hope and pray that he is right, because right now there is a lot of bad teaching from pastors, worship leaders, and other ministers, and it is by the grace of God that the church still stands in even a vague shadow of her former glory.

Thoughts on Love and Charity

I just finished reading Pope Benedict XVI's first Encyclical letter entitled Deus Caritas Est and I have to say that it may contain some of the most profound thoughts on love and christian charity/social action that I've ever read.

The Holy Father's love for the church and for humanity truly shines through in this, his first Encyclical Letter to the Church.

I don't want to try and condense what he wrote down to a small blog post for a few reasons. 1. I can't, he said to many profound things and I am still thinking through them, and 2. It's really long and it took me forever to read it.

So I will simply post the link here and put a couple of my favorite quotes from the letter below. I would encourage you all to take the time to read it. For those who are fearful of Catholics (namely my family) don't worry it doesn't get really Catholicy until the conclusion.

I do have to admit that there were some things that I didn't agree 100% with, but they were so close to what I think I was willing to give the ol' Padre the benefit of the doubt.

Here is the link:
Pope Benedict's First Encyclical Letter: Deus Caritas Est

Some of my favorite quotes:

"Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction." Intro 1:2

"Yet it is neither the spirit alone nor the body alone that loves: it is man, the person, a unified creature composed of body and soul, who loves." I 5:2

"...the good pastor must be rooted in contemplation. Only in this way will he be able to take upon himself the needs of others and make them his own..." I 7:3

"I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or who will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians." I 14:1

"The Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the Sacraments and the Word." II 22:1

"The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice."
II 28a:5

"The Church can never be exempted from practising charity as an organized activity of believers, and on the other hand, there will never be a situation where the charity of each individual Christian is unnecessary, because in addition to justice man needs, and will always need, love."
II 29:3

"...it is very important that the Church's charitable activity maintains all of its splendour and does not become just another form of social assistance." II 31:1

"Whoever loves Christ loves the Church, and desires the Church to be increasingly the image and instrument of the love which flows from Christ." II 33:1

"our crying out is, as it was for Jesus on the Cross, the deepest and most radical way of affirming our faith in his sovereign power." II 38:1

It happened again...

The first time it happened I thought about posting, but by the time I got back to my apartment I decided that it wasn't significant enough to post about. Well, it happened again and so I've decided to post about it.

So what exactly is it? It... is this:

I went to the grocery store to buy some groceries and was filled with an overwhelming sense of disgust and betrayal. Not at people or the store, but at myself.

Like I said, this isn't the first time it has happened, and so I can't merely shrug it off as good old fashioned liberal guilt. I have to think about it, I have to deal with it, but how? Everyone has to buy groceries don't they?

The question is how do we buy groceries without participating in the sinful cycle that we call capitalism? How do we purchase milk without supporting the system that screws poor dairy farmers while huge coorporations get richer? How do I buy apples without supporting apple farmers who pay migrant farm workers wages that aren't enough to feed a dog on?

Yes, there are a few options like free-trade coffee (but I don't drink coffee), but not enough and these options are usually expensive. So how do I do these things while one a very limited grad school student budget?

And why do i feel this guilt when I buy groceries and not when I buy books or pay for my cell phone? I know these aren't exactly the same but they're close enough.

How do I stop supporting big business that does nothing but give poor people the shaft. And yet, if big business were to be completely eliminated then millions of people would be out of jobs and there would be even more people in poverty.

Is socialism the answer? How about communism? A drastic overhaul of capitalsim? Should I treat this like the "meat sacrificed to idols" in scripture? Should I stop asking questions and delight in ignorance? I'm not sure. I'm not educated economically or politically enough to give an intelligent answer or even know the full extent of the problem.

All I know is when I go to the grocery store I get disgusted and feel like I am betraying all of my convictions just by buying milk and vegtables.

I don't have an answer, nor do I have a soap-box to stand on, all I know is it's something I think about a lot and so I put it out there for you all to think about with me.

Shalom

Thoughts during a show

I just got back from running sound at a sweet bar, that very much resembled Coyote Ugly, named Fergie's in Lebanon, KY. The show was awesome, it was by a guy named Jason Aldean or something like that, I dunno he's some random country guy, and a band named Hooker. Yeah I know that's a funny band name. Well while I was running sound, I started having some theological thoughts, so I thought I would quickly blog about them before I go to bed, even though it is 4:00am.

As I was standing at the monitor console tonight, I began to wonder what exactly separates me, as a Christian from the drunken mass on the dance floor. Other than the obvious - Christians don't dance! What makes me different from them as a Christian that wouldn't be different if I walked away from the faith?

Here is the dialectical discussion that ran through my head:
Is it that I don't drink? No, that's not it, because I believe drinking is theologically permissible and if I walked away from the faith, I"m pretty sure I still wouldn't drink,just because I have no desire to at all.
Is it that I don't swear? No, words are just words and I just don't like to be vulgar, so even if I left the faith I probably still wouldn't swear.
Is it that I don't wear cowboy hats and say Yee Haw! No, cause that's just lame.
Is it that I am kind to people? It seems that, this one gets closer, but I just enjoy being nice to people and I think that if I walked away from the faith I would still be a pretty nice guy.

I thought through a bunch of other things and I began to wonder "where is the sacrifice." Almost as soon as I thought this I remembered Jesus' quotation of Micah something that sounds like this "understand this, I desire Mercy not sacrifice." Couple this with the overly quoted "they will know you by your love" and one would tend to think that the answer to my question is self evident. Well I think not.

I thought about this for a bit.

Is showing mercy and love to the poor what separates me? No, because I would have compassion on them anyways. There are plenty of people who do lots of wonderful things for the poor and they're as unregenerate as unregenerate can be.
Is showing love enough? Well, yes, but then we have to hyper-qualify the love to be unconditional love that is only perfectly displayed through the power of the Spirit.

And I feel we cannot forget sacrifice, although if we take the above quotation out of context we can easily assume that no sacrifice is needed anymore. However, the bible is very clear that sacrifice is required.

So where is the sacrifice?

It seems to me that this might be what the distinction is - willingness to sacrifice, or better yet the practice of sacrifice. I am not ignoring mercy and love, they are essential, but so often we try to show them in our own strength and confuse love and mercy with good deeds and we do the deeds as the end in themselves and call it sacrifice. I believe love, mercy, and sacrifice all go together, but it seems that we've really forgotten sacrifice. True love and mercy (to hyper-qualify them) truly do mean love and mercy that are sacrificial beyond our wildest thoughts.

But I think the important questions for us all to answer, one that I'm still struggling with is this. "If I walked away from the faith today, what would be different about me?" If the answer is nothing or hardly nothing then we have sold ourselves out to something that is nor more Christian than the Mormons are. Non sacrificial living is not living in the shadow of the cross and it is not living in the reality of the resurrection.

The problem for us is seeing what sacrifice really is. We say "but I do sacrifice" and refer to something lame like teach Sunday school. Yes for some that may be a true sacrifice, but for most, it's a cop out. We as Americans suck at sacrificing. What we need is a good old fashioned persecution! Then sacrifice will come, it will come at the cost of our lives, at the cost of our children, parents and other loved ones. We will then live in the ever-present reality that our brothers and sisters in China live in. It seems to me that when we learn sacrifice, true sacrifice, that we will also learn true mercy and love, because there will be nothing left in us to hinder the flow of those things from the Spirit in our lives.

I know, these are crazy thoughts especially since they were developed while listening to country songs about beer and tractors. But maybe I'm right, or maybe I'm completely wrong. But either way I still think a good question to ask ourselves is: "If I walked away form the faith today, what would be different about my life?"

Postmodernism

Let me preface this post by saying that I'm a bit tired so I apologize in advance for any points that seem to be unusually unclear or nonsensical.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about postmodernism and the Church's response to it. Some of this thinking has come from classroom readings, some from dialogues with friends and some from my own experience in a postmodern "intentional community."

Thinking back to my Houghton days, oh so long ago, I remember how I was all about postmodernity and the "emergent" movement. I was so excited for this new paradigm in which to minister. A paradigm which seemed to throw off the shackles of modernity; especially the scientific method and the need for empiracle proof of all things, and seemed to embrace experience, narrative, and people.

I was all for this new paradigm for the majority of senior year and did not become wary of it until Doug Pagit came along and told us about his emergent church: Solomon's Porch in Minnesota. His lack of concern for orthodoxy bothered me, along with the lack of spiritual depth with which this emergent leader spoke. I am not trying to criticize him personally, but I observed this in his lecture and my subsequent conversations with him. My main concern with this was that he was one of the key leaders of a movement and seemed to lack deep spiritual passion - usually a bad combination.

Although this was a red flag, I still was a fan of postmodern christianity represented by authors like Pagit, and McClaren, and what is becoming countless other authors. This changed, however, when I came to Asbury.

At Asbury one can hardly hear students and some faculty talke for long without hearing phrases like: "our story", "our narrative", "emergent", "community", and other words and phrases that are hot phrases in the postmodern christian dialect. (To be sure, the context these phrases were spoken in ways often spiritually deep and packed with meaning.) Added to this I started to attend "Communality" an emergent-like intentional community in Lexington that had a very postmodern vibe. With the combination of these two factors and some readings in one of my classes, I began to have a new perspective on postmodernism and Christianity. I guess one could say that I was simply getting burnt out on the phrasology, but I would argue that I was begining to see a broader picture than what I had seen before.

I began to wonder why I was becoming dissillusioned with this Christian embrace of postmodernism. I wondered if it was the apparent lack of spiritual power that I observed in Communality and Pagit. I didn't think this was it because at the seminary there was incredible depth. I wondered if I was just sick of hearing the word story and narrative. Maybe, but it seemed to be larger than just annoyance. I wondered if I was just merely too far entrenched in modernism that it hurt to break out. I didn't think that was it either. I kept asking these sorts of questions trying to pinpoint what I disliked about it and then the other day I seemed to realize my problem with it.

It's trendy.

I think that we as Christians are making way too big a deal out of postmodernity. We're racking our brains trying to discifer the global culture, the way the world is taking shape. We're trying to be relevant by accentuating community, story, and other postmodern things, when really we're just hopping on the newest Christian fad.

I'm not saying that postmodernity doesn't exist, I'm not saying we should stop trying to understand culture, but I'm asking "why do we care so much?" Why are we so busy trying to understand what the world is thinking. It's as if we need to figure it out because we have a way to project the gospel to the whole world at once and it needs to be relevant to all. I am convinced this deep need to understand the entire culture is nothing but an immediate product of our mass targeted Christianity (church growth movement) which is deeply rooted in modernism. We're becoming obsessed with community and story because it is the next gimmick we can use to sucker mass groups of people into the Kingdom (or what we narrowlly view the Kingdom as being - i.e. the local church). The Kingdom always grows one individual at a time (though it does not emphasize THE individual in all things) and it is always working by the power of the Spirit.

Yes, community and story are genuinly important to some (and rightly so), but to talk about them all the time seems like a mere gimmick. To value community is not to continuously talk about it, rather it is to live within it and structure one's life within community and to value story is the same.

We've missed the mark. We constantly focus on global contextualization when really that's not the issue. The real issue is local contextualization. Why do we care what the whole world thinks and how society is moving. To be concerned with that seems to me to be an excuse for us to become blind to what our neighbor thinks and how she or he is moving in life. We constantly seek to look on large scales, when the real ministry of the Kingdom is done on small scale. In the case of the Kingdom of God, bigger is not better!! - Well at least not until the parousia.

The book of Acts shows us the movement of the Kingdom from Jerusalem outward. It starts small, with a rag tag group of Spirit filled disciples and grows into a large Spirit filled movement that encompasses much of what was then the known world, including Rome. While we may not have the same scenario here, we do have something analogous. We are constantly looking at Rome and beyond and trying to figure out how to reach it, but we haven't even concerned ourselves with Jerusalem, let alone forged a path to Rome.

We need to stop talking and start living. We need to stop theorizing about what the world is thinking and start dealing with the thoughts of those around us. We need to throw our hands in the air and say "who cares about postmodernism." We need to realize that the only ones talking about it are philosophers and Chrsitians (not that the two groups are mutually exclusive) and realize that the average person on the street, doesn't need postmodern Chrstians, they need real Spirit-filled Christians to help them in their needieness - both spiritual and physical.

So who does care? Not I.

Ramadan Ends

Ramadan has ended and thus has my Ramadan fast. I'm not really sure to write here, but I thought I should write on the end of Ramadan since I wrote about the begining. So my thoughts will probably be a little more scattered than normal, hopefully you can follow them.

I'm not sure if I will ever see or hear about any of the fruit of my prayer and fasting, but it was worth it. I have come out of this time with an increased love for the Islamic people of the world. I have a bigger view of where Islam is and how the Evil One uses it as a great tool of deception and oppression. The weekday lunch hours I spend in prayer with five other people were wonderful times. I don't know if I have ever prayed with people that ferverent in praying for people many of them don't know. It made me realize how little our churches care about the lost and the world.

I do have to give tremendous props to the Muslims though. I started the fast and it wasn't too bad and then I found out that you're not allowed to drink during the daylight hours. Then it got hard. Couple that with intramural sports and a student's schedule and by the 3rd week I felt myself getting pretty spent.

This also made me think about how much food is more than food in our culture. So much of our society centers around food. Hanging out with friends almost always involves some sort of food. If you don't eat lunch, but are still around people who do you feel like they're look at you wierd. Sometimes it was almost as if I would remove myself from social situations to avoid the complication of describing what I was doing and why I couldn't eat. Our society is completely wrapped up in food and doing this also helped me to see that in a new light.

I can't think of any other thoughts about Ramadan. I know I had a few more but I forgot to jot them down and have since forgotten them. Especially because Ramadan ended a few days ago.

So there is a little bit of an update, if you wanted one.

Blessings

Decisions, decisions, decisions

As some of you may know I'm in the process of making a major decision right now. For those of you who don't know here it is: through a series of events I ended up sending my resume to a Wesleyan church in Austrailia. Things are looking good and they want to set up a phone interview which from what I gather is just a formality to be done before they officicially offer me the position. So the decision is: Do I move to Austrailia and take this church (providing it's offered) or do I stay here at Asbury. This is the main decision I'm working on right now.

What I want to share with you now isn't that I have this huge decision, but something God seemed to be speaking to me the other day.

With this decision I felt the need the other day to get out in nature and spend some time meditating, praying and reading some scripture. As I was out at some nature place near lexington I began reading through one of my favorite Psalms - Psalm 34. As I was reading this and taking some pictures of nature with my camera and praying God seemed to be telling me not to seek out the answer to the decision. He seemed to be saying to me, "seek me, and that will fall into place."

So that's what I've been trying to do. Focus on seeking God in and of himself. With this perspective it's hard not to seek God as a means to an end (the answer to what I should do), but nonetheless I continue to seek God. I pray that he will allow me to truly seek him, not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself.

No soap box this time, just something God showed me and I thought I would pass along. Take it for whatever it's worth.



Blessings to all of you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!