My Quest

New old economics

2011-05-09T09:22:00.000-07:00

Here is an except from Andy Catlett by Wendell Berry. I am currently on a Berry kick, so enjoy the bits that I have taken from him.

I think often now of that old economy, which was essentially the same from a farm household that was fairly well-to-do, like that of Granny and Granddaddy Feltner, to the household of Dick Watson and Aunt Sarah Jane, which would be classified as poor. For many years now that way of living has been scorned, and over the last forty or fifty years it has nearly disappeared. Even so, there was nothing wrong with it. It was an economy directly founded on the land, on the power of the sun, on thrift and skill, and on the people's competence to take care of themselves. They had become dependent, to some extent, on manufactured goods, but as long as they stayed on their farms and made use of the great knowledge that they possessed, they could have survived foreseeable calamities that their less resourceful descendants could not survive. Now that we have come to the end of the era of cheap petroleum, which fostered so great a forgetfulness, I see that we could have continued that thrifty old life fairly comfortably- could even have improved it. Now we will have to return to it, or to a life necessarily as careful, and we will do so only uncomfortably and with much distress.

Increasingly over the last maybe forty years, the thought has come to me that the old world in which our people lived by the world of their hands, close to weather and earth, plants and animals, was the true world; and that the new world of cheap energy and ever cheaper money, honored greed, and dreams of liberation from every restraint, is mostly theater. This new world seems a jumble of scenery and props never quite believable, an economy of fantasies and moods, in which it is hard to remember either the timely world of nature or the eternal world of the prophets and poets. And I fear, I believe I know, that the doom of the older world I knew as a boy will finally afflict the new one that replaced it.

Is Berry correct as he speaks through Andy? He sure seems to have the "new world" pegged well... How uncomfortable will the church have to get to realize its obligation to turning the world upside down? Can the church even turn the world upside down again, since the Church as an institution has been a major player in forming the world as it currently is. What needs to give?

Easchatology SS 3.2

2011-02-20T12:51:00.000-08:00

This morning we read through Genesis two. AS has been stated the study is on eschatology, but we cannot run to the end without first knowing the beginning. This week I the youth the meaning of life. I told them why God created them, and they were less than enthused. Alex even called it boring. But we'll get to that later.

You can read the questioned below, here I am going to give the answers as I understand them.

1. We come to know that God is the creator. We know that he has done things intentionally and not without reason. The order of creation is not random. We also know that God cares about God's creation.

2. God placed humans, animals, and rivers on the earth.

3. We cannot really know why, we just believe that God did. Who can know the mind of God. (this one didn't have a real answer, its just a good thing to muse on.)

4. We don't get a valuation of creation's goodness here. We just know that it is good. (Genesis 1 tells us it is).

5. The story tells us that humans are made of dust, (One could also read dirt and humus) and God's breath.
The dust is important because it shows life to be flimsy. Without God's breath, we are simply dust. We need God to give us our form.
Some people believe that God's breath in us is a reference to a spirit or a soul. Genesis 2 is probably a good starting point to argue that a person is both flesh and soul. Yet they are intrinsically connected. At this point here is no soul without the body and vice versa.

6. In the garden

7. God put us there to till the soil. one could interpret this to mean that we were placed in the garden to be God's workers. God is the gardener who gives life, we are God's workers. (2:15)

8. This one is a bit redundant, but I just wanted to get everyone's brains going. one thing that we learn from this is that God's task is life. God is supremely concerned with creation. God is so concerned that God even made a special class of animal to assist God in the care of it. God honored that animal and allowed the humans to name the animals. God has allowed humans the honor of participating in God's work of life. We will so that there might be more life. Thats why we exist.

Eschatology SS week 3.1

2011-02-20T12:15:00.000-08:00

Aparently I won't be keeping things as up to date as I would have liked. Since I had not yet gotten my review from week 1 up, waiting to put up week two stuff, but what is behind is behind. Here is the Homework I gave my students

Read Genesis 2:4b-25

Answer the following questions.
What does this passage tell us about God?

What did God place on the earth?

Why did God place these things on the earth?

What does this story tell us about creation, is it good or bad?

What does the story tell us about humans?

Where did God put humans?

Why did God put humans there?

How might this story influence our understanding of life? Why are we alive?

2011-02-14T21:29:00.000-08:00

For the last few months I have been helping teach Sunday School at Warrens Grove UMC. This spring I have decided to venture into writing curriculum again. Since my youth are tech savy, I have decided to put a lot of that material online. They are a great group who are unafraid of an extra challenge. To this end I have and will be making worksheets for them. I will post them on my blog so that my students can access them whenever they want. Feel free to follow along and ask questions, push back, or correct what I am writing. I believe that what I am writing will be faithful to scripture, the tradition, and the rule of faith, but I can mess up easily. Any conversation will be welcomed. Welcome to my High school Sunday school class!

Since I will be leaving NC sometime this summer, I thought long and hard at what might be my last classes at Warrens Grove. I wanted to do something that would potentially change the lives of my students. Therefore I chose eschatology. I came to this decision because It is something that I enjoy studying. More than that, however, I believe that eschatology provides a great frame work for how to understand Christianity. I went with eschatology for more reasons than just preference. Lesslie Newbigin argues that the Church needs a recovery of eschatology. Stanley Hauerwas has stressed that we must pay more attention to it as well.

I spent a semester studying eschatology in undergrad, but that was just enough to get me thirsty to know more. This stems from a belief that knowing where we are going will advise us in how to live. That and I have been particularly indicted by Wendell Berry who says that “[Christians] have had their minds turned elsewhere- to a pursuit of “salvation” that was really only another form of gluttony and self-love, the desire to perpetuate their lives beyond the life of the world”(“a native hill”, in the art of the commonplace). I think many North American Christians have done just that. They are often attempting to escape from this world into heaven. I am probably showing my hand to early, but I find that type of theology dangerous.

Yet another indictment comes from Soren Kierkegaard. IN his notes at the end of the Princeton edition of the Hong Translation of The Works of Love, one can find this:

Contemporary Christendom really live as if the situation were like this: Christ is the great hero and benefactor who once and for all has guaranteed us salvation, and now all we have to do is be happy and satisfied with the innocent goods of earthly life and leave the rest of him. But Christ is essentially the prototype; therefore we should BE LIKE him and not merely reap benefits from him”

I believe that his observations remain true. Many Christians live as though they can live their lives as though they were innocent of a great many social evils. This is not done from any malicious intent, but perhaps from a distorted picture of what will be our end. This is why we must study our end, to know what awaits.

So there are my reasons, I have more, but this will suffice. Tomorrow I will put up a recap from last Sunday, and on Wednesday I will post something for this coming Sunday. Enjoy following along with my class!

Thanksgiving

2010-11-27T12:03:00.000-08:00

Sometimes studying theology gets a bit annoying. I am constantly learning. I am trying on new glasses and seeing what the world looks like through them. This semester my imagination has been shaped by the Gospel of Luke, and it made Thanksgiving difficult.
Thursday morning I woke up rather early. I had planned on sleeping in, but my body doesn't do more than seven hours straight any more. I don't remember what exactly I did, mostly piddled around doing nothing. I drove and met a friend and together we went to the Ardieta's household. The time there was wonderful with friends. The whole day, however, I was a bit off.

Thanksgiving is probably the only Feast that most Americans attend. I don't know how often people celebrate. I am unsure how often we mark our calenders with events like Thanksgiving and Christmas. I am grateful for these holidays as they are incredibly important for the liturgy of my life. This year, however, I think I failed at the holiday.

The reason I put all this is because I could not help but shake Luke out of my head. In chapter 14 Jesus says this:

He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."(Luk 14:12-14 NRS)

Thanksgiving I went to a party thrown by friends. I am grateful for their hospitality, for they did not need to invite me at all. They are incredibly gracious, kind, and wonderful people. I wonder if instead, however, I had thrown a feast here, maybe things would have been better. Every day I pump gas I see a few homeless folk. Perhaps I could have followed Jesus' words.

Thanksgiving is a time for food, friends, fun, fellowship, and family. I wonder however, if that is how Jesus would celebrate his holidays. I love my family, but Jesus asked "Who is my mother, brother, or sister?"

Does God really demand so much?

See theologians don't leave anything alone. God breaks even into time honored holidays.

I may have failed here, I guess I ought to throw a feast later in the new year.

I hope you all had a happy thanksgiving!

Bread of Life

2010-11-17T18:08:00.000-08:00

Today I have been reading William Cavanaugh's Being Consumed. This short little book examines the global economy in light of the gospel. In the last chapter Cavanaugh quotes John 6:35 "I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry." This is a well known passage, but I am not sure many of us have ever understood what is meant by hungry here. I think most people probably spiritualize the verse and assume that Jesus' body will provide spiritual food. While I understand the impetus for that reading, I am not sure that I can agree.

This might be a bit of a stretch, but I wonder if this is not an occasion where John's narrative is speaking on two levels. On the one hand Jesus probably said this. On the other maybe John is arguing that people who come to the Church will never go hungry. Here is my argument. John's gospel was the last to be written about 90 AD. This is WELL after Paul has written. In fact most Christians had probably read Paul's letters. That means that they would already know that the Church is the body of Christ. All those who claim, "Jesus is Lord" are members of this one body. If that is true then whoever goes to Jesus' body goes to the bread of heaven. The Church is, therefore, the bread from heaven. Whoever goes to the Church will never go hungry.

But is this actually true? Whenever people are hungry and they go to the church are they guaranteed to be fed? I have no idea if people would be or not. If, however, one goes to what is supposedly a church and walks away hungry, then can that place truly be called the Church? If some walk away from the body of Christ hungry, have they really come to Jesus or was it a cheap imitation?

I wanna be an ordinary radical, so friggin bad

2010-06-30T15:32:00.000-07:00

This is taken from Shane Claiborn's Irresistible Revolution. It took me a while to read it, but I finally did. While serving at Christ Church they have convinced me that "good is the enemy of great." I wonder how that may apply to what follows.

It is much more comfortable to depersonalize the poor so we don’t feel responsible for the catastrophic human failure that results in someone sleeping on the street while people have spare bedrooms in their homes. We can volunteer in a social program or distribute excess food and clothing through organizations and never have to open up our homes, our beds, our dinner tables. When we get to heaven, we will be separated into those sheep and goats Jesus talks about in Matthew 25 based on how we cared for the least among us. I’m just not convinced that Jesus is going to say, “When I was hungry you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me,” or “When I was naked, you donated clothes to the salvation Army and they clothed me.” Jesus is not seeking distant acts of charity. He seeks concrete acts of love: “you fed me… you visited me in prison… you welcomed me into your home… you clothed me.”

Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Bulgakov

2010-04-16T13:54:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not know, I hate that the Church is divided. We are supposed to be one body. I completely refute the idea that the "true" church is invisible. I am sorry Luther, but thats simply unpauline. Paul wished for the Church to be united in Spirit and in Mind. Most Christians seem unconcerned with this problem. Many theologians are also unconcerned. Over the past year, this has become a major concern. Indeed ecumenism has probably become the driving force of my theology. Today I posted a quote by Serigius Bulgakov as a facebook status. It read: The Absolute, God, without any relation to creation is a conventional abstraction. Scott Christensen replied to it saying, "i think barth could have said that, too " I completely agree.

I am writing this to pose a question to anyone, perhaps myself. Is there a way that Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Bulgakov can be faithfully read such that their theologies are complementary. If this is true, is there a way that these there can provide the bridge between East and West thus ending a 1000+ year divide? Is this possible? Are Christians willing to seek this re-unification. Do we wish to be in communion with our Sisters and Brothers who wear another adjective before Christian? Anyone willing to do that work?

The Romance of Snow

2010-01-30T13:15:00.000-08:00

I normally try to avoid self indulgent blogs. The ones that are used for people to spout their ego and show how great they are. I say this, but I am quite guilty of it. Anyone who read my xanga or my myspace, blogspot, or my facebook notes would know that not too long ago I was willing to do it. In the last year I tried to shift my blogging to something more educational. Last night, however, it snowed. It has continued to snow. I blame the snow for what follows. Read for entertainment, I hope you laugh at me or smile with me as I recount the Romance of snow.

My goal today was to start and finish a 5 page ethics paper, but as I saw the snow and heard the sleet I could not help myself. I needed to get outside. I got my big coat and my snow pants on, found my scarf, gloves, and my hat from Russia and went outside. Oh I love snow.

I do not know when my infatuation with snow began. As a child I loved the stuff. Its so beautiful and fun. I remember running to the Church in snow. One year it snowed and then iced on top. I was so light that I could walk on top of 4 inches of snow. I remember almost getting stuck between the Church and the parsonage. One day my dad had to take his shoes off so that he could get some grip. It wasn’t a long walk, so it wasn’t terrible. Snow was just fun.

My mom used to tell me about the 3 feet of snow they got in Michigan. I have always wanted to walk through snow like that.

As I marched up the street I realized that Addidas cross trainers really don’t work as well as my old boots. (dad threw them away). As I looked down the slush covered street I found myself back in Russia walking to the bus stop. The roads look just the same, and someone’s fireplace burning wood brought back the banya. So I kept walking.

I turned a corner and a car slowly drove by as if on cotton smushing the snow as it went.

When I came to a hill I became lonely. This wasn’t the pathetic loneliness that sometimes occurs, but the nostalgic loneliness that remembers good times and wishes them to appear again. It’s not one of desperation, but one of fondness. One where I thought, “I am glad to be here, and I wouldn’t be here otherwise, but that sure was nice. Sigh” I think we have those. The moments of vulnerability that few of us are really willing to admit happen.

The “that” which brought this moment was remembering my little Russian romance. While studying there I met this incredible girl. She was fun, intelligent, athletic, happy, quirky, and joyful. Everyone had to walk through the snow, it was a Russian winter. We choose to walk through it. We would walk to this overlook. Behind us was upper Nizhni with the university and businesses. Below was the Oka river and factories. We would stand and talk there for hours. One evening we walked out as it snowed. There was already about a foot of snow on the ground, but more huge flakes kept coming. As we walked the clouds separated and the full moon came out to embrace us. It bounced off the snow and the city lights dimmed for they knew that was the appropriate thing to do. We sat on a bench in silence. Then we joked about ridiculous things. At one point she confessed to me, “One day when I’m married I want to have sex in the snow.”

“Weirdo! Ok actually that might be kinda cool.”

Sure it wasn’t an appropriate conversation, but two twenty year old Christian virgins are probably more obsessed with sex than most other people. Its this forbidden fruit we were taught to fear, something magical that would corrupt us to the core if we were to “do it” before marriage. Yet within the confines of marriage it was treated as the pinnacle of life. With hormones raging on a moonlit snowy night why wouldn’t we think of sex? I wish I were strong enough to say that the media has no influence upon young people, but I am pretty sure these emotions were the result of having seen too many Romantic Comedies. I may have also been listening to too much Dashboard Confessional also. I think I did start singing, “My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me. So won’t you kill me, so I die happy. My heart is yours to fill or burst to break or bury or wear as jewelry which ever you prefer.” So really I didn’t sing it out loud, but the song was going through my head.

We started a snowball fight. She got me good with a shot to the eye. I faked being hurt so that she would come close. As she inspected it I stole a kiss. It was one of those kisses that electrocutes someone. She was a bit stunned not knowing if she should kiss back or be repulsed. A snow ball ended the brief pause and our playfulness resumed. She fell into a snowbank and couldn’t get up. I grabbed her hand which she used to pull me in with her. We found ourselves embraced by each other and the snow. As we kissed I thought, “hands down this is the best thing I could ever remember…” Yes I know that was lame, but it’s true.

Our romance was quite chaotic, but that is ok with me. She is now married and I hope happy. Regardless of what happened to us, that was probably one of the best kisses in my life. Snow makes me romantic. I smiled as I strolled through the snow wishing that I could relive that wonderful night. The emotion is fleeting, but fun to remember.

The clouds opened on my walk and it started snowing once again. As it melted getting my feet wet I was reminded of yet another short romance.

It was December and up until that point it had been warm. One night the sky decided that large snowflakes were in order. I called up a friend and asked if she wanted to go for a drive in the snow.

I picked her up and found the nearest country road. Since it had been warm the roads were clear, but the sky was not. We were both exited about the first snowfall of the year. What a great occasion. I turned on the brights and she let some of her nerd out. “So this is dorky, but you know in Star wars when they go really really fast? That’s what this looks like. “

“Warp speed?” I grinned. “yeah it does, its pretty awesome.”

We got out from town a ways and decided that we wanted to walk in it. Being the genius that I often am, I told her I couldn’t be out for long because I was wearing flip flops. We pulled off at one of the hunting area’s stopped the car and got out. As we walked down a trail to a creek we both started to get cold. I teased her about throwing her in, “as long as you rescue me, I’m ok with that.”

“What a flirt, she totally wants me.”

We walked back because my toes were close to falling off. Then she twirled, jumped into my arms and gave me a big kiss.

“what was that for, aren’t you talking to that guy in California”

“Shoot! Yes, but… I was just excited. Snow makes me this way.”

“Such a tease, that’s all you are.”

“I’m sorry”

“No its fine, tease, just know you owe me one for keeping this silent.”

Nothing came of that night either. We never dated, but I have always had a fun story to tease her about. She may actually read this and get embarrassed, but I thought it was a great night. Once again snow is romantic.

When I came across some children walking with their sled my mind rushed to Switzerland.

Alex and I didn’t sled in Switzerland, but we did get to play in the snow. I watched him as he snowboarded. One day I convinced Alex and Richard to go for a hike with me in the snow. They took a picture of me with Engelberg in the background. Still one of my favorite pictures.

One week we had about a foot of snow. Alex wanted to be a great goalkeeper, and he knew that I had played in college. The two of us shoveled the snow from his yard into two large piles. Then I would toss him the ball as he jumped into them. I gave him a few tips which he really wasn’t interested in. I am pretty sure he wanted an excuse to jump into piles of snow. I don’t blame him as I got a go as well. The more we “practiced” the more fun we had. As he jumped into the snow, the snow became packed and slowly turned into ice. Eventually he was jumping onto large ice blocks. I’m not supposed to enjoy a child hurting himself, but this was great. Alex had been a butt for almost the entire time I worked there. He was too smart for his own good and a bit of a troublemaker. While my evil side enjoyed him starting to hurt himself, I eventually stopped him. “Ok” time to stop. We went inside and drank hot tea.

Before you start thinking me a pedophile, this I would not call this romantic. It adds to the story, however, because it reminds me of the girl I met in Switzerland.

I actually met her in Starbucks. My second or third weekend in Switzerland I decided to go see a movie in Luzern. The theatre was fairly close to the train station and they had some English movies playing. I don’t even remember what I went to saw, the whole thing was basically an excuse to get out. I stopped by starbucks and got a Chai latte. (they taste about the same there as here incase you were wondering). This incredibly attractive brunette asked me what I wanted. When she realized I wasn’t Swiss (European or Asian for that matter… Luzern is a tourist town and lots of Japanese people vacation there) she asked me where I was from. I told her and we made some small talk. She had more customers so I went to the patio and found my place in War and peace.

Ten minutes later she came outside saying, “Guess what you get to do!”

I was confused, but she was hot and hilarious. What straight guy is gonna complain about some gorgeous girl gregariously engaging them in conversation? I smiled and asked, “What?”

“Help me with my English.” She was trying to figure out the difference between “could,” “should,” and “would.” I tried my best to explain, not for the sake of making the English grammar system intelligible, but because I wanted to keep talking to her. Her brake ended short thereafter, and I went to the movie.

After the action flick, (one of the few times I’ve braved the theatre alone) I had an hour to kill. Knowing nowhere else to go, I got another chai. She was still working. Wonderful! We flirted a bit more, and I got her number. I love it when girls offer their numbers. It’s usually a good sign (not always as recent experience tells me… that’s a story for a different time). For the next few months She and I would meet up. They were always fun times. She was one of those girls that could make me grin ear to ear. I constantly had one of those goofy smiles, but nothing ever came of it. I tried to date her, but she wasn’t keen on the international part of a potential relationship. When I decided to quit the au pair job I tried to find a way to stay, mostly because of her.

That fell through and it is probably for the better. We remain friends, and she still makes me smile, but we know that we will only ever be good friends.

Snow makes me romantic. I only have good associations. I could tell more like the time I drove through a snowstorm to meet a girl for new years eve, or the time that my car got stuck while visiting her. I have lots of associations, and I think it makes others romantic as well. On my walk I have seen couples walking their dog. I saw another with their cross country skiis out. Yet another couple was simply holding hands in the snow. I have been writing this in bean traders and couple after couple has been walking in and buying coffee.

Even though it can be annoying, we love snow. It forces us to take a bit of a break. It causes extra work, but a forced day off is never a bad thing. I avoided my paper and thought about my past relationships. If you have someone special, I hope you enjoyed the snow with them. If not, I hope you found a way to celebrate the snow. I recommend a lonely walk, not one of regrets, but one of nostalgia. Enjoy the snow.

On the way and here today

2010-01-01T14:36:00.000-08:00

Ever run across an old song that you really love? When I was home for Christmas my younger brother and I were driving to Chicago. Even though we are both in our 20's we still sometimes fight over the radio. It is a bit ridiculous, but we have different music tastes. We usually have to find a compromise which is OK, but not necessarily something that we both love. As he drove, I turned his Iphone to The O.C. Supertones. We started listening to "The Kingdom" here are the lyrics.

I think I found it,

An inspiration

I can see a glorious nation

It's over there just above Zion

And it looks like Jerusalem

It's on the way, the date is set

It's here today, but not here yet

Can almost hear, can almost see

It's a banner caught upon the breeze

Upon it is a Lion...

I tell you the truth when I say that the kingdom is on the way, on the way

I tell you the truth when I say that the kingdom is here today, here today

Christ reigns now and don't forget that the kingdom is not yet!

It's getting closer

To fulfillment

But the kingdom began with the advent

He is reigning through his people

The first will be nothing compared to the sequel

No more war, no more crime, no more unemployment line!

And there is Christ upon His seat

Where mercy, truth and justice meet

And He will never falter...

I tell you the truth when I say that the kingdom is on the way, on the way

I tell you the truth when I say that the kingdom is here today, here today

Christ reigns now and don't forget that the kingdom is not yet!

We both started singing, this is a song that we both love. It is catchy, quick, fun, and profound. We are both seminary students and appreciate songs that have something more than fluff in them. This song sings about what theologians call either "realized" or "inaugurated" eschatology. These terms signify the same concept which is the already but not yet quality of the Kingdom of God. the Supertones write this definition beautifully in the middle of a slightly ska rock song. I know that Christian rock is considered hokey, lame, and irrelevant by most people. I understand that, a lot of it is crap. I would argue, however, that the Supertones (Switchfoot and Shaded Red too!) are some that stick out. Good music with some solid food.

I posted this because I believe that the church needs to redeem its eschatology. Too many people think that the rapture is good Christian theology. This is partly because our atonement theories are mostly individualized. Many Western churches have lost their social dimension. We believe that being a Christian is about being "saved." By this we mean that we have prayed some short prayer and have then earned the golden ticket which grants us entrance into the pearly gates.

With individualized salvation, we can believe that our soul leaves our body one day in the future. We must reject this and realize that Christianity is not all about me and my salvation. Christianity is about God, and God's work in the world. God's work in the world is to reconcile all things to God. Christians need to take up this work. As the Supertones put it, "He is reigning through his people"

If we regain our eschatological eyes, then we will see that the Kingdom of God is what Christians are called to belong to. The Kingdom "began at the Advent" and it has continued through the death, resurrection, ascension until today. This means that Christians should not be primarily concerned with getting people in its doors so that they might get their winning ticket. Instead the Church should be concerned with redeeming people by calling them to a new standard judged by kingdom ethics. This includes proclaiming the Gospel and converting others, but we are converting others to a new mode of existence. This means new ideas on justice, mercy, wealth, sustainability, "upward movement," ecology, poverty, and violence.

In light of the Kingdom that will be fulfilled in the eschaton, the Church should strive to live that reality today.

Death Penalty

2009-11-10T09:27:00.000-08:00

So i really ought to be writing a paper explaining why I believe that God can suffer, but I am a news junkie. I check at least 3 websites daily. Strangely they have mostly been silent with regard to the execution of John Allen Muhammad. While this might be a commentary on the news sites i regularly check, that is not what I intend this to be. i realize that it is too late for me to do anything positive to stop this execution, but I still feel that I ought to speak out. Dave Allen wrote an incredibly insightful article for the confessio that can be found here. In it he says, "If we are true witnesses to the love of God and the redemption wrought in Christ’s death and resurrection, we must be so bold as to cry out for John Allen Muhammad. Cry out against the execution of someone whose guilt is unquestioned, whose crimes are horrendous, and whose conscience seems unrepentant. True, some will call Christians naïve and impractical. But those with eyes to see, and ears to hear, will discover in the church’s opposition to Muhammad’s execution a profound affirmation of God’s power to redeem the worst evil of this world. " I have to agree. God does have the power to redeem. I know that were it not for grace, I would be the worst of sinners. Why doesn't the church cry out? This is my attempt at crying out. God Bless you John Allen Muhammad, you don't deserve it, but neither do I.

The Visible Church

2009-09-29T08:32:00.000-07:00

Lesslie Newbigin was a great man and an under-rated theologian. This fall I have been taking a course called "Readings in the theology of Lesslie Newbigin." In order to understand his theology, however, we must also understand his life. Newbigin was a missionary, an ecumenisist, a theologian, a bishop, a preacher, and a pastor. Most of his career was spent in India working for the Church of Southern India, a church which he helped bring together out of the missionary efforts of the Church of Scotland, the Presbyterian Church, the Church of England, and the British Methodist church. He served in several capacities there as well as in Britian. I was first introduced to Bishop Newbigin in Dr. David VanHeemst's "Post Modern Political Theory" course. In it we read The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society. If I am completely honest, I do not remember exactly what that book was about, but I think it dealt with culture and its influence upon conceptions of truth. It may have also discussed how Christians do not need to accept foreign epistemologies. Regardless, I do remember loving the book. (I get confused because of the other material I had been reading for DVH and for my Dad. Some stuff by Marshall and Clapp sounds familiar. In addition I think my own engagement with theology had brought me to similar conclusions. Newbigin provided language for thoughts that I already possessed.)

In the present course we have read his Sin and Salvation, The Good Shepherd, and Signs Amid the Rubble. I highly recommend these books to anyone, and I believe every pastor should own The Good Shepherd (even if it is out of print! )

This week our reading came from The Household of God. It deals with Newbigin's ecclesiology. I find this to be incredibly exciting because I love ecclesiology, I love the church. (see my facebook note titled "I love you Belleville first") After a long discussion about the nature of faith and its relation to the church, newbigin begins to explain his conception of church. He does this through critique of the protestant idea that individuals can come to God apart from the church. Newbigin argues that the Church is defined as whereever the Word is preached and the sacraments recieved. this means, however, that the Church comes through people. He then argues against the protestant conception of a visible and invisible church. He, perhaps unfairly, indicts luther for using this unscriptural language in Luther's attempts to reform the church. Since Luther emphasized the "invisible" nature of the church, the church has lost the idea of visible unity.

This leads Newbigin to ask the question, "How has it come about that the vast majority of Protestant Christians are content to see the Church of Jesus Christ split up into hundreds of separate sects, feel no sense of shame about such a situation, and sometimes even glory in it and claim the support of the New Testament for it?"

His question is an indictment against all protestants who are content with the denominational divide. Are we cotent with it? To go a step further, do we support greater division in the church? Do we see the demise of denominations to be a good thing? (that is a fun question to answer!)

The more I read of Newbigin, the more embarassed I become about my past thoughts concerning my denomination, but perhaps this is not just a trend of my denomination. I have noticed a trend within the Church of the Nazarene to assert its distinctive theology, an attempt to legitimatize the distinction between Nazarenes, Wesleyans, and Methodists. I cannot help but think this is the exact opposite of what we, as Christians, ought to be doing. This might be true of other denominations, but I feel as though in recent years many churches have been diggin in. They pull out their government issued shovels and dig their foxholes around a certain issue or couple of issues coming out to blast certain enemies. It seems as though thousands of feet have dug themselves in the ground getting ready to take a huge blow. This cannot be correct.
If there is One God and one baptism... shouldn't there be one Church?

Part of me would like to go on a rant against contemporary hyper denominationalism that is faddishly known as "Non denominationalism," but I won't. Instead I leave with a question. How or why are some (perhaps many) Christians content to see the bride of Christ, to see Christ's body split up into thousands of pieces? If God can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine by the power that is at work within us, then why is unity of the visible church seen as an imposibility? If Christ came to reconcile all things, then why are Christians not incredibly disturbed at the lack of reconciliation within Christ's own body?

Needles and thread

2009-09-25T23:42:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I was playing on facebook and went on my Evan Frerich's page. Evan and I played in our band Product 6 with Luke and John. we sure had a blast practicing and travelling the midwest. We played at camps, retreats, revivals, and concerts. John and Evan used to climb on the top of his church's roof. I could tell tons of awesome stories from the P6 days, but i am not writing about that. E has always been a musical guy and a musically connected one. I saw a link for www.thesixtyone.com. so I checked it out. The website is pretty awesome. It allows free listening to thousands of songs. It helped me remember that I truly love music. I also love being in the know when it comes to new music. As a result have found quite a few bands that are worth checking out. I recommend House of Heroes and The Rescues. while all this is awesome, Sleeping at Last is what prompted this entry. They are a band that I have loved in the past, but I have forgotten about them. I found them again, and I love it.

Their song Needle and thread is particularly beautiful. The chorus of the song is

We are made of love,

And all the beauty stemming from it.

We are made of love,

And every fracture caused by the lack of love.

Caused by the lack of love

This describes both the ideal and failure of humans. We are made of love by the creator of love and our purpose is to love. We fail whenever we do not love perfectly. Fractures are caused by a lack of love, and no human loves perfectly, therefore we are all fractured. Lesslie Newbigin described the human position as one of contradiction. Contradiction is quite similar to fractured. we are. I think St. Paul was the most blunt in his description of us. He said "all have sinned." For some reason Paul's words offend us, but if we think about it, it is true. We all sin because none of us lives up to the standard perfect love. And we are made of love. I hope one day I can live up to that love. Love is beautiful, and anything that embodies beauty is a result of love. What a poetic way to explain our fault, but also our potential. Thanks sleeping at last. Your epic music fits the profundity of these lyrics. i hope everyone can agree and come to recognize their own lack. In doing so they can find a way to heal those fractures. the way to heal a fracture is with the triune God who is love. to this God be the glory forever.

The Good I want to do...

2009-09-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

In 'The Good Shepherd'; Meditation on Christian Ministry in Today's World Lesslie Newbigin says,

"Very often our theme, if not the actual text, is chosen for us by the Chruch in the plan of lessons set forth in the Book of Common Worship... It is a safeguard against becoming a prisoner of my own limited ideas and emotions. It compels me over and over again to preach on a passage which i would not have chosen for myself., and therefore compels me to wrestle with what s new and unfamiliar to me. I would say that this wrestling with an uncongenial text can be the source of endless new insight. I am sure that the most helpful sermons I have preached have been those which came out of this kind of wrestling, not from texts which I could choose for myself."

I hope Newbigin's reflection on a long life of preaching comes to be true for me. Philip and i are going through the book of Romans. We have different perspectives on the book, yet we both wish to be faithful to its author and to the Gospel. Since I do not have to preach every week, I get time to mull over the passage. I get to live in it and let it marinade in my brain for a couple of weeks. Yet even if I were to go with KC's best, I am unsure that I will know how to handle my passage. I get to preach out of Romans 7. here are the verses

Romans 7.14-8.6

14 For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. 15I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. 22For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.24Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.
8There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set youfree from the law of sin and of death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

I know this passage is incredibly important, but it is also incredibly difficult. I may have chosen this in a couple of years, but not now. Lets hope I can wrestle with it and that God will use that wrestling. For now I post the passage. comments welcome. What questions do you have? What question is Paul answering? How does this pericope operate within the wider Roman context?

this week, a conundrum

2009-09-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

So I missed last week's sermon, and I have not yet listened to it online (on my list for tomorrow), but I am excited to see what happens this Sunday. I am going to assume that our next pericope(passage) will be Romans 1:18-32. It says,

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth.For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious towards parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practise such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practise them. (courtesy of bible.oremus.org)

i translated this passage with much difficulty last week. I am taking a course on justification, for which this is one of the main passages. Today Dr. Campbell suggested that perhaps Paul is not the person speaking here. Maybe there is an interlocutor here. I am not yet certain on any position. But I do have a question. here Paul presents a situation in which, "they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened." It seems as though our ability to know God apart from divine revelation is what makes us culpable, and therefore worthy of punishment. The argument is based on Natural Theology.

If we assume that Paul wrote Romans and that Paul also wrote 1 Corinthians (which almost every Biblical scholar will admit) then Paul seems to be contradicting himself. in 1 Corinthians 2 he says,

6 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. 7But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9But, as it is written,
‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him’—
10these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God.

In this passage it seems as though natural theology is useless. What humans can know about God is only very little, and out of ignorance humans will kill God. The question then becomes, how is this true? How are we culpable for that which we cannot know apart from God? Is Romans 1:18 paradigmatic for all humans? Where does Paul tell us this? Just questions that I am working through. Hopefully I will have some answers later in the semester. I guess I need to keep reading and keep studying. I will fill you in as I get some answers.

2009-09-10T19:10:00.000-07:00

This summer, I spent a lot of time thinking and praying about ministries at Warren's Grove. The greatest need I saw was something for people between the ages of 18-30. We have about 27 people loosely associated with the church in that age range. I know that this is a broad area with a ton of development that occurs within that decade, but it is still a fun age group. People develop at differing speeds, so age doesn't always tell a lot, but it is the best barometer for a small group at a church. Knowing all this, I decided to take advice from Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come." Therefore this fall we will be having a young adult small group at 7:00 PM in the fellowship hall. We will start on Sept 27th. The small group will be organized as a type of study. I have titled it "Christianity 101: What is this religion?" Even as much as we might think we know Christianity, the religion is 2000 years old. I do not think any one person completely comprehends it. I think it might be fun to explore the religion. We will begin with the Apostle and Nicene Creeds and go from there. All who consider themselves "Young Adults" are welcome to come. Check out this awesome flyer from a college friend Chris Sanders. Check out his website: http://www.christopherdelbert.com Thanks CSanders!

2009-09-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

Philip's Blog has inspired me to return to the blogging world once again. I do not know how valuable a tool this will be for ministry, but who knows. Maybe something will come of it. For now I am excited about our adventure into Romans. I am also taking a course on Romans so it will be fun to see the points of tension between Richard Hays and Douglass Campbell as seen through the lenses of two students and pastors work at the same church. I welcome anyone to follow along. Not everything will pertain to church, but we will see.

grace and peace
Q

2007-10-02T12:27:00.001-07:00

So yesterday was yet another beautiful day in Luzern.

I woke up with a jerk. I looked at the clock, 8:08. Crap. I flew up the stairs hitting maybe 2 of the 20 taking full advantage of my 4 foot legs. I hopped into Alex’s room and both remorsefully and fearfully said, "Dude you got to get to school. Its 8:08 I just woke up sorry man." He looked up from his book with a perplexed look and said, "Its Sunday"; which only made me burst out laughing. "OK you can laugh hard at me now Alex"

"You’re weird"

"Sorry ok. True.

“Can we play GameCube? “

“What no I need to get ready for church. Ok 15 minutes.”

“20”

“15”

“20”

“10”

“17”

“15”

“Ok 15. Let me get dressed.”

I went downstairs and started getting dressed and my bag ready for the trip down the mountain.

“What game do you want to play Ryan?” he asked upon entering?

“I don’t care?”

“Sonic?”

“Sure.”

“I will kill you... hahaha”

“I’m sure you will Alex, I’ve never played this before.”

“Oh it’s a good game.”

“Ok. Let’s play.”

So we played for 20 minutes.

“That’s enough Alex, I need to finish getting ready for church, and I don’t want to miss my train.” “Ok I kill you without you.”

“Haha, go ahead Alex.”

I ran up to the kitchen and ate a quick bowl of cereal. I slapped on some deodorant, finished getting dressed and realized that I still had some time. So I went and picked up the control. Alex was happy, so we played a few more levels.

Shoot Alex, I got to go” I realized that it was 5 after 9, and the train that leaves at 9:15 takes at least 7 minutes to walk to. So I grabbed my things and sprinted out of the house. I got to the train station to see that the train had not even arrived yet. So I ended up waiting on the platform for about five minutes more.

Once on the train I sat and basically zoned out. I was in the middle of a great meaningless thought that I will never again remember when a group of children woke me. I had three or four year olds plop down on the bench in front of me. Then an elder lady sat next to me, and a small blond haired girl with super blue eyes jumped up on her lap. I have no idea what the group was, but these kids were stinking hilarious. They were full of innocent energy and curiosity. It led the chubby toddler by the window to slam his head against it trying to look out the window harder. Everyone who saw had a little giggle at this enthusiasm. He didn’t even cry. He just had a look of, “what’s so funny? What did I miss” as he rubbed his small head.

Upon reaching the station, I waited for the children and then walked out. I took the western exit and walked into Starbucks for the second time that week. The train arrives in Luzern around 10:20 and church starts at 11, so I had about 40 minutes to kill. I bought a tea and went into the longue area. I cracked my Steinbeck book and read until the red pony died. It was a sad story, but then again, I was reading Steinbeck, so what did I expect?

I left Starbucks and walked the 4 blocks to church where we were celebrating the harvest. We sang a few choruses and the offertory was Great is thy Faithfulness. I love that song, but the church didn’t quite sing it with the emphasis that Belleville first does. I think they were lacking the bass vocals, or maybe people just haven’t sung the song understanding just how triumphant it can be. Which I find as hard, “Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I hath needed thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me.” Those are great lyrics. Perhaps we sing those words but don’t actually mean that we do see new mercies everyday. Lately I have been learning that God really has provided me with all that I hath needed and even more so.

It was great to sing this song again, but also disappointing. I mean how can anyone who understands the lyrics to the song sing it without enthusiasm? Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, Thine own dear presence to cheer and to Guide, Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow Blessings all mine with ten thousand beside.” It’s so true and so wonderful. He really does take care of His children, and we are truly blessed. Others don’t see it, so I shouldn’t be quick to say we; I guess I know that he has always been faithful with me. So I love singing about how faithful He is.

After singing we had announcements and a time of prayer. The church is incredibly informal by American standards and I love it. Every service before prayer they ask for requests. So the community humbles itself enough to speak out about their problems or their concerns. Following the lead of all those willing spirits at Belleville first, I am jumping into the community, and I requested prayer for my uncle and his family. To those who know that situation, be encouraged that a small English speaking congregation in Switzerland is sending petitions to heaven on Dave’s behalf.

After the informal prayer with people praying in the empty spaces, the pastor gave a sermon on the Real Jesus. He warned that we ought not to make Jesus in our own image as we often do. He didn’t exactly say who the real Jesus was, but instead he reminded us that a good metaphor for the real Jesus is a shepherd who takes care of his flock. He explained Jesus’ compassion on the crowds that followed and how the crowds that followed were most often the poor, the sick, the homeless, and the unemployed. Most often those types of people had nothing else to do with their time. So Jesus looked out on the crowds and had compassion, then he said, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few, therefore ask the lord of the harvest to send out workers.

The pastor said he loves Jesus’ style. I agree. The world has tons of work, the harvest is ripe, and God could use workers, I wish he would send some out. But I cannot petition God to send others if I am not willing myself to become one of his workers. It was quite challenging. We closed with an adapted form of Patrick’s Shield with God before us, behind us, below and above, next to and inside. Then we had a chance to greet everyone with coffee after the service.

A Scottish man came up to me and asked about Uncle Dave, and so I told him a bit more about the situation and he reassured me that he will be praying for him. Then when I was standing by the coffee I started talking to the piano player matt who just moved here in April. He is a test pilot at a plane factory nearby. Roland was also talking with us, and I got to know him a bit better.

Matt had to attend to his children and wife, and I asked Roland what he was doing for lunch. He is a single guy in his thirties and he responded by saying,

” do you want to come over for lunch?”

What, well, I didn’t want to ask myself over” I said awkwardly.

Before I had even finished my reply he interrupted and said, no ok we can go out. Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t even have a clue”

“Ok well let’s just walk over here by the lake”

So we walked towards the lake and talked about life. Roland is working as an engineer right now, but before he spent 6 years living in South Africa. He studied at a bible college and I guess interned or worked on staff at the largest church in South Africa. He told me about some of his studies and time there. I also discovered that he is also new to Luzern. He moved there in the middle of July. He has only been attending the church for about 6 weeks. So it was good to know that I am not the only new guy to the area.

Roland is an interesting character. He loves Brazil, bamboo, and leopards. His furniture is all bamboo, he has lots of clothing with Brazil emblems on it, and he has leopard print blankets, curtains, coat, and even table cloth. But whatever, he’s quirky, that’s all. He is also an incredibly nice guy. In our walk to the restaurant we decided it would be both easier and cheaper if we just went to his flat. The view from his flat is of both the Alps and Lake Luzern, it’s wonderful. If anyone has ever been to Luzern, his flat is located about a block from the lake a block behind the Catholic Church. So it’s in a great place.

I made the salad and Roland cooked duck with potatoes. It was a good meal. As we were cooking it, Roland explained that on Swiss TV it is possible to change the language. AS he was showing me, we flipped through the channels and found the Woman’s World Cup finale: Brazil vs. Germany. Roland was ecstatic. He had really wanted to watch the game, since he loves Brazil.

“Is it ok if we watch this” he said.

Half laughing I said, “of course.” I am not sure that he knew of my great love for soccer. So we both watched the game. It was excellent. I will confess that I am usually not a fan of women’s soccer; it simply doesn’t have the pace of men’s soccer. But this game was great, those girls are skilled. I also found the stereotypes still existing. The Germans played together well and capitalized on their opportunities, while the Brazilians looked pretty and sometimes didn’t make the most of their efforts because of their fancy play. Germany ended up winning the game 2-0, which I was stoked about. I felt bad because I was a guest in my new friend’s home and the team he had watched lost, but oh well. I left after the game and then gave Tina a call.

Tina is a girl that I met in Starbucks. She’s stinking hilarious and she wants to work on her English. Since I would like someone to talk in German with, it works out well. So I asked what she was up to, and she said that she had just woken up. I was shocked and teased her, I mean sleeping in to noon is one thing, but 4? She then explained that she celebrated her friend’s birthday after she got off of work. Since Starbucks is open late, she works until 1. That was a bit more reasonable… but not really. She asked what I was doing for dinner, which I said I had no idea. So she suggested that we meet by the train station at seven and get dinner together. Great!

Except when I called her, it was sometime after 4, and I had 3 hours to spend in Luzern. Fortunately Luzern is a wonderful city with a great lake and lots of benches and people walking along the boardwalk. So I walked down to one of those wonderful benches and opened my Steinbeck book. I had about fifty pages to finish, so I slowly read and watched the people passing by. The morning in Engelberg had been cold and rainy, and it turned out to be a wonderful partly cloudy day in Luzern. I was kicking myself for forgetting my camera. I am sure that a handful of other people are upset that I brought my camera as well. When I finished the short stories by Steinbeck, I realized that I still had two hours before my meeting time. So I began walking down the boardwalk. I figured, I will walk until almost six, and then I can turn around and that should take up all of my time. So I walked slowly and looked at the boats coming in and out. I am convinced that one of the boats had nothing but women on it, for the spinnaker had a dark pink stripe on a like pink background. I know very few men who would fly that kind of sail on their boat.

Some others unfurled their colors for the down wind sail, and it was great to watch them go up and come back in. It brought back memories of sailing in Canada.

When I came to the end probably a 2 or 3 mile walk, I found a little a square or a park right next to the water. Boats were anchored in front of me and to my right was the Luzern Yacht club. I ended up walking faster than I thought I would, so I opened the second volume of the Gonzales book that I have yet to finish and started reading about the rationalist option to Christianity. It was interesting to see how many men of the rationalist persuasion I have read or know a lot about. Everyone from Pascal to Kant was listed.

I finished the chapter and began walking again. Then I realized I was walking too fast, so I stopped and read another chapter. When I got up and started walking for the second time, I walked by a large dog chasing around a small one. It was stinking hilarious, don’t ask me what kind of dogs they were, one was large and black with a beautiful coat, the other was small and black with a similar coat, but their jaw lines and the brown highlighting of the small told me that it was not a puppy, but merely a small dog. They ran ran and ran. The small one was doing a good job of staying away from the big one by weaving in and out of the park bench. It made tight turns that were impossible for the larger on. Lots of people were looking on this in amusement.

A little further on I noticed that a man had taken the rocks in a garden and stacked them. He had oddly shaped rocks about the size of a coffee can turned upside down with the pointy side holding them up, and that was on top of four or five other oddly shaped rocks. The new sculptures were quite impressive. I was in awe, and then I thought, “Who spends time learning how to balance rocks?” That just kind of seemed absurd, but then again I am in Switzerland, and the Swiss, well, they are odd.

I finally got to our meeting spot, and Tina was not there yet. So of course, I popped open the history book and did some more reading. I took a break for a second when I thought I heard a familiar voice. Tina was right behind me talking to someone. She didn’t notice me at all. It was funny, I made quite a noise opening my bag and putting away my book, but she didn’t notice me until I stood up and took two steps towards her. But it was fun. We exchanged bissous, three of them. If ever someone is in Switzerland then know that they give 3 bissous, not 2 as in France. I had discovered that from another Swiss friend of mine. I do it whenever I greet my new friends, but it is still odd to me. I mean pressing your cheek against someone’s face and making a kissing sound in their ear is a greeting? Sometimes I just prefer a handshake.

“So where do you want to go eat?”

I don’t know. You’re the one who lives here. Where do you want to go?”

“Well do you want French, Italian, and Swiss Food?”

“It doesn’t matter, you show me where.”

“Want to go to my favorite French bistro?”

“Sure let’s go”

So we headed down the street towards a French café. It wasn’t far at all. When we got there, Tina was shocked, “it’s not cold, and it’s warm. Where is everyone? Why are they all inside?”

“Got me, do you want to sit outside?”

“If you do”

‘Which table?”

“Is this one good?”

“Bien sur”

“Ah you and your French. And you can switch into it like its nothing”

“Not really, only certain phrases. Just wait until I have had more time with German, I’ll be speaking in that like it’s my own language hopefully.”

“And you can speak Russian too?”

“Yeah, but it’s not good now”

“Well still, that’s crazy, you’re crazy”

Well I don’t know about that, but whatever”

“Ah Ich kanne nicht auf Englisch sprechen.”(I can’t speak in English)

Und ich kanne ein bitzen auf deutsch sprechen”(I can only speak a little in German)

“Ok, wir sprechen auf deutsch”

“No, you speak in German and I will speak in English”

“Fine”

A few minutes later the menu was brought out. I thought I heard that they had a menu in English, so I just kind of discarded the menu in German. It took me like 30 minutes to order, because Tina kept refusing to translate the menu and I couldn’t quite figure it out. Tina repeatedly teased me’

“We can go somewhere else where they have an English menu. Or we could go to Mc. Donalds, they speak English there. How about my place I can cook something and you can point to what you like…”

“Ha Ha Ha…. No I can try and read this.”

About the fourth time the waitress came by, Tina ordered and I said, get me whatever. So I ended up getting a French version of wings, which was apparently their specialty.

Tina and I talked forever about everything and nothing at the same time. It was great. After our food got cold we decided we ought to eat it. So we finished our meal and then talked some more. About 9:30 we got up and left after paying like 60 francs. Yet food here is expensive. (Exchange rate at time of writing this is, 1 ChF= .851 USD.

The night had become cold, so I threw on the sweater I had with me. (Thanks mom and dad for sending it to me) Tina put on her long jacket that looked rather American. I teased her for being American.

We walked in the direction of “The Roadhouse” a night club where Tina was meeting some of her friends. We went in and Tina said she was going to get me back for buying dinner. She was going to buy my drinks. When I got there I decided I would take a break from my usual… and I got a sprite instead of a coke. She protested enough that I let her pay. When we found a seat she went on to explain.

“In Switzerland, men and women are…” she made a flat line motion with her hand.

“Equal”

Yes, equal”

“Ok, but a guy is offering to pay, he’s not trying to insult, just be nice. Take advantage of it girl”

“Never”

“Whatever”

We then decided we should just make fun of the American tourists in the bar while we waited for her friends.

“Oh look there’s an American over there”

“Oh sure, she’s drunk too.”

“Do all American girls dance like that when they are drunk?”

“You’re asking the wrong person. I bet that guy that looks like he’s yelling over there is an America”

“Definitely”

Tina’s friend arrived and we began talking. Her friend, whose name escapes me, spoke French, German, and English, but French was her first language. So the conversation switched from broken English and German, to broken English, broken German, and French. It was a good time. At about 11:20 we left the Roadhouse because I had to catch a train. I hopped on the 11:40 train after spending a great day in Luzern. I zoned out most of the way reflecting on my day. I am very glad that Luzern is nearby. I might go insane without it.

2007-09-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

Things are going well here. It was finally sunny. I wiöö post pictures up in a bit. It is absolutely beautiful. Engelberg is at 1000 meters. We have snow on al of the mountains surrounding the valley. Its incredible. Today I woke up in time to get Alex and Richard ready for school. They were gone by 8:00. So i took a two hour nap. Then I went grocery shopping and picked up the things for lunch. I made french toast for the guys. Which they totally loved. Tomorrow I am making chili. They have a recipe here, but mom you wouldnt mind sending me yours would you? I dont think we have the same tomoto sauces or beans, but i can improvise. Learning how to cook should be a good time. It gives me something to do in the morning.Both of the boys left for afternoon classes by 1, which meant I had free time to shower and do as i liked. Christina and I went to get my residence permit, which took all of 5 minutes, and then i was free for a few hours. I stopped by everyshop in town and realiyed how expensive life is in a resort town. The cheapest articles of clothing I could find were around 50 francs. I really wanted a jacket or a coat or hat or shoulder bag. Those are the things im looking for most, but in browsing I found something that i may end up buying around christmas. They have an incredible bag that looks like a suitcase, except it has shoulder straps. Its a tad smaller than mine, but it would be wonderful for any future travelling. it has wheels and everything. I am going to debate and check my finances later. Then i will decide. I came home and then CHristina showed me the library. It has some books in English which should be great. After that I got online and posted those pictures as well as chatted with some friends. Alex came home from school at five. We were going to go get bread, but when i told himto put on a sweater he through a temper tandtrum. It took a good hlf an hour for me to settle him down. I am learning that he is a little pistol. I think he is not used to a strong authority figure, which i will be. He kept saying "nien" to me whenever i asked a question. Either that or he would make fun of me in German. It really wasnt pretty. Finally he behaved and we went into town to buy some bread. We reconciled when i raced him into town and won. On the way back from the bakery he learned that i am a bit more athletic than he thought. He had a scooter and wanted to race me back. I had taken a short cut going down hill, so we went the same way up hill. I won that race too. He was greatly surprised... so was I.Tonight Christina had meetings in luzern, which is an hour train ride away. So i made their dinner and we all ate just fine, well until Alex starteed throwing something. I told him t stop, he didnt. I took the thing away, or i should say I was in the process of reaching for it, and he swung hitting his cup of juice spilling it on the ground. Then when i asked him to clean it up, he said no once more. He threw a fit again. Richard kindly cleaned up most of the dishes and put them in the dishwasher while i helped/ supervised Alex clean up the juice on the floor. When trying to get him to clean up i ended up doing the counting thing, because he was ridiculous. Since his bed time is around 8:30, and it was 7:30 i told him he needed to take it easy and read. He then went downstairs as i finished cleaning and put on hsi shoes. I asked him where he was going. He told me the library. (the library is right next door) I tried to avoid the argument by saying it was closed. (christina hold told me the hours, and that time wasnt one of them) It trns out the the libary was open. So after that ordeal he began to go, I told him he had to feed his cats first, to which he protested.Then he really threw a fit. He ran outside, but i got him into his room. Then when i checked in like 5 minutes, i found him crawling out his window. I went around and asked where he was going. He then really went off and made quite an ugly face. He has an incredibly strong will. I asked him to please come inside, and not once did I lose my temper with him. I asked him why he was mad at me. I simply had been asking him to do what I had told him. He ran around the house and started kicking the fence as he went. I really felt sorry for him. I dont udnerstand why he is so violent. I guess he is trying to assert his own will or something, but i simply thought he needed to feed his cats. All i asked him to do was feed them. Finally he came inside. I think because he was cold. He went into his room and slammed the door. I sat outside of it watching teh windows to make sure that he didnt cimb out one. Then he started throwing things in the room. So i went in and picked up the stool and said. "Now i have to sit in here to make sure you dont throw anything. He ran out of the room into the kitchen. So i followed. We sat in there for a while, then he started messing with things. I stood in front of the door and said he could leave when he fed the cats. He layed there. Then he finally ended up taking the cat food and filling a cup full. He then stood straight up and put his arm parallel to the floor then turned the cup downward so that all of the food hit the cat dish, and splattered out onto the floor. Of course I told him he had to clean it up, and he responded by kicking the litter box. Which threw litter all over the floor. "You can clean that up as well" was my appropriate response. He layed down on the bench behind the table and started making noises. Then he got angry and pushed the table out of the way. Since the table was messed up, i said, "And now you need to put that back" Eventually he relized that i wasnt going to let him leave until he finished all of those chores. He angrily put the table back and he picked up most of the litter, but didnt touch the cat food. Mainly because the two cats had come in and ate it all. I wasnt really too mad that he spilled, only that he spilled intentionally.Yesterday wasnt the best day for Richard, as he doesnt listen to his mother, but thus far he has listened to me. He laughed at Alex while alex was being punished, which i promptly stopped. LAter tonight while he was on the computer researching black holes, i asked him to not laugh at his brother. I said that as a 14 year old i expected him to set an example. I said that he undermines my authority when he does that. Then i explained what the word undermine meant. He got it and said it was just a reaction he understood that it was bad and will try to stop. He really is respectful and i think it will be fun hanging out with him. He kept showing me photos of black holes and i got him to explain to me what he had learned about them. Since he spent 2 hours researching i think he liked doing it. Hopefully showing him respect and interest in what he does will make it easier for me.At dinner tonight he asked me to "Say to me my failures in English" To which i said, "Well then, a better way to ask that question would be. "Ryan can you tell me when i make mistakes and correct them" He repeated and i gave a mini english lesson on the difference between say and tell. I also explained mistakes and failures. He practiced them a few times and later said, "Opps i made a mistake" Ok really he said schieza instead of opps, but i dont think thats the correct spelling. Alex finally went to bed at 9, and Richard was in his room by 9:30. He reads until ten. Christina got back about 10 and so i came downstaris and check email, and started writing this. I think i will post pictures, write some more personal messages or emails and then hit the hay. So that was my day in Engelberg. I think with my guitar here and the books that I have as well as some others should keep me busy for a while.

2006-09-11T23:02:00.000-07:00

this is a first draft of a paper i wrote for my Modern Ecclesiology class. It is a response to the book that I posted on last time. enjoy!

What makes a church relevant? Fifteen church leaders were asked this question, and this question is one that I have asked myself for a great long time. Perhaps I have no worded the question as such, but the church hopping that I have endured is testimony to the idea that I did not see churches that had it. They didn’t have the spark factor and I was looking hard. This question is one I am just now finding an answer to.
Over the past three years, I have been seeking a place to call my church home. I left my home upon heading to Olivet Nazarene University as a religion major. Since I am a PK, I am a critic of the church in a great way. Nobody does church like my dad, seriously, nobody does. For most my life, he has had it right, and everyone else needs to adapt to his style of church.
This is incredibly hard to do when I think of the kind of church I left. It was a Nazarene church practicing a liturgical style of worship. Expecting other Nazarene churches to do the same was completely irrational of me. So the last three years I have been bashing the local churches and had all but given up on the church in America.
I flailed my arms up in defeat and utter despair and hopelessness upon returning to America from Russia. I went to church 3 Sundays in a row to the same church that I had been attending pretty faithfully for a year. I sat in the foyer waiting for a friend to sit with for about 20 minutes each Sunday, and each time, no one spoke to me. Everyone filed into the sanctuary and took their normal seats. I heard mediocre preaching and ended up madder and madder at the Jell-O-O hard sermons.
I juxtaposed this church with the one I attended in Russia. This church is now my church home, and though I am thousands of miles from my home, I know that my brothers and sisters meet every Sunday in prayer and in communion with the Holy Spirit. The Calvary Chapel of Nizhny Novgorod Russia was incredible. They have a mediocre band that sings American praise songs translated into Russian. They meet in a severely dilapidated soviet children’s theatre. It has been closed to all other activity and the church only gets use because of some loophole in the law. The walls are thin on the south side so that in the Russian winter people bring coats and blankets to stay warm, the miniscule children size bleacher seats are covered in graffiti with both Russian and American swear words, and the ceiling with its massive hole falls on people constantly mimicking the snow that generally falls in Russia. The church is in no way ascetically pleasing. Yet they possess something intangible.
The people of this church worship in true community. They depend on each other for their daily lives. They know when someone is not present, they cry when others suffer, they exult when others are happy, they come together as one body and the concern of one is the concern of the whole. During my time there, I made known to the pastor my desire to help the poor in Russia as well as the ecology. Pastor Vlad immediately proposed that he and I go to the train station and feed the homeless there that night. Unfortunately, we did not go. Vlad is one of the busiest pastors I have ever met, starting work in the morning, and he returned home at about midnight with still more work and phone calls to make. The pastor personified the spirit in these people by his willingness to work in conjunction with the desires of one of his parishioners. Yet my comments did not stop there. The very next time that the church was in the country, people showed up early to clean the area where they were living. All because some audacious American said that he interprets the call in Genesis to dominate the earth as one to protect the world in which we live.
The greatest part of this church was the communal worship. They came together on Tuesdays for the women’s bible study and Thursday for men’s. They had an outreach on Mondays and Saturdays was youth group. Fridays were opportunities for seminar teaching and Sunday nights were worship in the form of sports. This community of faith would go to the local arena and play soccer with the neighborhood kids. Witnessing through their spirit and inviting them into the church or to a Christian concert. Yet Sundays and Wednesdays were the greatest days. This is when they came together for bible-centered preaching. The pastor basically gave an exegesis on a chapter in a book of the bible. We worked through the Wisdom literature, Major and Minor Prophets on Wednesdays and then Sundays were going through the epistles. They had already covered the gospels.
The model of church that I see in Russia is one that complies with two of the trumpet blasts written in The Relevant Church. Mark Driscoll says that “What held it [his church] together was a godly Bible-centered pastor and a community of people from various stages of life and backgrounds.” The written word taught to people in an inadequate worship service made Driscoll’s church relevant. He also points out that the church is not perfect. The Calvary Chapel was not without fault and the church I was raised in had plenty of drama. Driscoll accurately claims “that the Church is people and that people are sinful, and therefore churches are messy” Yet this does not depress him nor I, for He has faith that being a faithful community is valuable.
This idea is incredibly reinforced by Todd Spitzer who I imagine shouting (though he probably only typed it) “God’s Word does not return void” (93). He furthers this idea by saying “God’s word is relevant, not our words about Gods word, and it is God’s spirit that transforms the heart of a person.” He says “we seek to re-dog the old wells of the fathers in this time of spiritual drought and bring the refreshment found in the Scriptures to a new generation.”
This trumpet blast cuts right to my heart, because so often I sit in churches without the word present. The church I grew up in was chocked full of scripture and relevant tradition. My new home church, which lies on the other side of the ocean, uses the bible as a spring, as a well providing quenching water and true food. I see that in order for the church to be relevant, it need not fight over worship styles or service times/locations. Instead the focus should be on presenting the message of Christ and the liberating power of His revolutionary love. Driscoll adequately predicts,”Churches that embrace cultural relevance over biblical faithfulness will in time become heretics like Hymenaeus. And Spitzer says the cure to “sickening spirituality”

is simple and yet profound: Teach the truth of God’s Word and see regeneration occur as God’s Word reveals to us who God is, how much He loves us, and that He died for us. He will impact your community with the greatest message the world has ever heard, a message just as relevant today as it was when Jesus first crashed into history.

2006-08-26T12:34:00.000-07:00

So I am a bit of a loser... and I have been reading a book for a class that I haven't yet started. The book has a great quote that I whole-heartedly agree with. Here it is... "The Church will be most provocative and alluring when it is being itself, being who God has constituted it to be, that is, being a mini-society that proclaims the person and work of Christ, and imitates his sacrificial service."

Since last spring I have been attempting to define the church in a short sentence or two. I have never been able to successfully. Probably because I have such blurry thoughts these days or maybe because I do not really want to be able to boil down something so mysterious as the Church universal into a sentence. Something about that destroys the mystery of a group of people in community not only with themselves but also with the Godhead, the three-in-one.

When I used to ponder on the church, my heart used to darken in disappointment. I have been disillusioned with the church in my first 3 years at ONU. I have begun to accept the idea that the church is a stagnant strict construct where people gather together because they want to be holy because they are told that going to church is a part of being holy. Almost like it is checking off a box. Church was a legal requirement and the people sitting there were not excited to be sitting in the pews with a few hundred other believers who were just as excited that they get to sing praises to our heavenly father who loves us. The people in church seemed to me like Tim Taylor from "Home Improvement".

In one episode they tackle a more serious issue. Tim and his son Randy get into a fight about going to church. Randy is spending Sundays volunteering at a nursing home with an old man. Tim demands that Randy come to church with the family instead of going to the nursing home. Randy replies with something to the effect of, "Why it’s not like you actually go! You sleep through the whole service" Randy then storms up to his bedroom which is offset. Tim yells after him, "Well attendance counts! At least I'm present" Then the laugh track plays and everyone jokes about how Church is for legalists and that the service is not actually a way for people to commune with their divine creator.

A "check the box, I'm here" style of church is one model that I used to think of. The other was not much better. The rock n roll church also used to come to mind. It reminded me of my youth. A time when I would go to camp, I would go to revivals, I even lead worship with my rock band at revivals. I went to massive youth conferences such as Acquire the fire or Nazarene Youth Conference both in 99 and 03. I remember the tears shed on numerous alters, at countless churches, in several states and even in two different countries. I can remember trying to raise my hands as high as possible hoping to get the next and newer emotional high. I knew and still know the key phrases.

I vividly remember "burying my sins" as a Jr. Higher at one event. It was a dramatic display in a college area filled with youth. We took an "offering" where all who wanted walked to the front and threw in an example of their sin into a real coffin sitting on stage. I wrote something and threw it in; I saw cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, condoms, and things that belonged to "sinners". On other occasions I participated in a conga line while we sang, “We want to see... We want to see... we want to see Jesus lifted high" Then thousands lined the isles committing their life to full-time Christian ministry; I stood with teenagers from my church, friends from camp, and even my older brother.
These events always, ALWAYS, ended in a crash as I returned to my "normal" life at school or home. Perhaps I should take most the blame for allowing such events to be an emotional activity, but I think some of the blame can rest on the creators of such an event for not having more teaching moments in the large forum. They left most of the teaching up to seminars that we attended on our own whims. When I think of a rock and roll church, I cannot help think of a mega church, which does not immediately connote something positive in my mind.

I have often criticized this model of church because it leaves people empty, or at least it has left me empty and I am a person who on more than one occasion has been accused of thinking with more heart than head. You would think that my heart would be able to sustain a change if it dominates my person, but the so called changes rarely lasted. They were watered down milk that lifted the spirit and made me feel spiritual, but they were not genuine religious experiences. Perhaps what I felt was truly God or maybe it can be explained by psychology. They were nearly the exact feelings that I felt while attending a rock concert, similar highs from dancing and singing the same song as the guy on stage and my 5000 closest friends.

This is why I am critical of mega churches too. I am one of those strange people who prefer a small congregation where everyone is in everyone else’s business, where if one person is hurting the rest of the church is praying. Maybe I prefer small because I grew up in this setting with testimonies on Sunday nights and bible studies on Wednesday nights and one Sunday morning worship service or maybe because I feel this is the way the church should be.

Don't get me wrong I think all churches should be growing, but I am hesitant of large churches because I feel that they lack a sense of community. I understand that most large churches have these things called "small groups" that form community. But the large churches create massive cracks into which people can fall. The lack of community can prevent maturation in the spirit. I do not say this to condemn all mega churches, but only to show a critique that I feel is very valid.

Now these critiques and so called faults in the church used to piss me off. The last three years I have woke up on Sundays angry or woke up excited and come home angry. However over the course of last year my anger subsided. Only recently through worshipping with a church in Russia have I come to truly realize that the value of a church comes not from the staff but from the laity and the lay leaders. I saw many examples of people who loved the Lord with their heart and who looked forward to coming to church every Sunday. I learned to depend on Sundays to get me through the week. I was in a strange place, but on Sundays I came home. On Sundays my brother Vova and his wife Luba, my sister, they would great me with giant hugs and huge smiles. Pastor Vlad would always say, "I am very glad to seen you here today Ryan" Mitya and Colya would greet me and we would immediately talk about the Championat Mira (World Cup) games that had taken place since Wednesday. I began attending Wednesday night services as well, not because my parents said so, but because I needed to be there. The two times I skipped were horrible. By Friday I was miserable. Saturday was unbearable and Saturday night I could not sleep in expectation of Church on Sunday. I was one of those people who showed up while the worship band was practicing and I left (like about 25 other people from this particular church) when the building manager told us we HAD to go. We were literally kicked out of church. This truly was a revolutionary church reaching out to their community in Russia. I love them greatly.

I guess this has what changed my perception on the church. The first time I came back from this Church i was greatly disappointed by the lack of community and substance. The church only darkened my view of the American church and Brian Kay hit the nail square on the head as to why I feel such sorrow when I think of the churches in my current community.

To me the churches here do not seem to be so provocative or alluring. They are nice they do not draw out the true wildness or passion on our hearts. When I say passion, I do not mean mere emotional passion on the surface level, but instead an intense deep longing in the core of our beings to participate in the work of the father which is the life of the church. I feel too often churches are not mini-societies but instead they are THE society. They do not often enough proclaim the person and work of Christ.

I believe that if churches did they would probably be less attended run by less staff and their services would seem less like a performance but more like a family reunion. These churches would be revolutionary societies because of the revolutionary love of our Lord and Savior. They could not help but love because all the preaching teaching and the pulse of the church would be the Love of God which leads to a true community of service. The needs of this ideal church that I long for and believe happens somewhere on this earth is one where pastors do not need to plead for volunteers but people are constantly volunteering because they cannot help but volunteer. They cannot help but live their lives outside of themselves for that is what Christ’s love compels us to do.

I love what Kay has said because in this sentence he admits that THE CHURCH not this church or that, not this denomination but THE CHURCH meaning the Church as a whole has not yet reached this stage. Perhaps it may never, but he implies the direction and the original intent of the church.

So this is my rant in response to the 5th page of a text book that I will read sometime this coming semester. I have an idea that this semester will be the greatest so far. I guess I take this to mean since the church will be most provocative and alluring when it is being itself to be an affirmation of me as well. I will be most provocative and alluring when I am being myself, who is a person who God has constituted him to be, this is, being a person that proclaims the person and work of Christ, and imitates his sacrificial service"

2006-06-16T05:32:00.000-07:00

So most of you may be wondering why this kid is such a weirdo and has like 1600 blogs. I know its weird. I initially joined blogger.com because I had to for a lab class. The blog was to maintain our research progress for possibly the most worthless class I have ever taken. Yet i have noticed that a few of my buddies now keep blogs here. I decided this would be a good way to keep up with them and what not. I guess this is the more mature version of xanga or myspace.
I will probably be posting odd thoughts that are attempts at being profound or serious. I will probably repost some of my xanga entries in here, but who knows. Currently i am working on some thoughts from my time here in Russia. Welcome to my new blog!