Len talked tonight about the metaphor of the church as a pc.
He says that our interface should be EPIC, but our OS should be run by (our original/ACTS 2/GEN 1&2) an MRI OS.
He says the church is in the process of being defragged by god, which is likely to be followed by a reboot of our OS.
Our current (aka BAD) OS is APC
Attractional - bring people to church and that will make the great comission come true
Propositional - focus on doctrine and dogma
Colonial - make every church look the same, a WASP congregation with a quaker hymnal
Our original OS is MRI
Missional - where everyone has a ministry to the church and a mission to the world
Relational - because truth is right relationship
Incarnational - go and become immersed in the culture around you and speak the gospel in their language
- remember, christianity is the only religion that no longer speaks the language of its founder
- we are all called to GO, 2/3 of GOD is GO
NOTE - even though APC is not the OS for which we're designed, we have to recognize that there will always be some APC that occurs if we're effective at MRI; but those things should always be concordant, not the aim in-and-of-themselves
p.s. sorry for the scattered post...decrypt at your leisure
Saturday, January 5, 2008
interruption
i interrupt these belated africa posts to complain about the miserable and horrible trip my family and i just took to chicago, wherein we all got the stomach flu and had vomit olympics in our tiny hotel room and almost killed each other with our lamentations and woe.
there.
complaining done.
there.
complaining done.
africa 4
I just killed a giant scary spider that was watching me take a bath. It was about as big as my open palm (including its devil-legs), had fangy-looking tusks?/teeth?, and spoke the black tongue of mordor.
Obviously I cannot sleep now. I hear noises that I imagine to be shelob's children hunting me for revenge of their brother's death and I've sweated through 2 pairs of pajamas.
To make matters worse, after I killed the spider I turned around and walked through a spider web (that wasn't there when I got out of the tub to deal with my demon) which means there is another spider building traps for me between the toilet and the duvet.
obviously i need to spend more time in prayer.
Obviously I cannot sleep now. I hear noises that I imagine to be shelob's children hunting me for revenge of their brother's death and I've sweated through 2 pairs of pajamas.
To make matters worse, after I killed the spider I turned around and walked through a spider web (that wasn't there when I got out of the tub to deal with my demon) which means there is another spider building traps for me between the toilet and the duvet.
obviously i need to spend more time in prayer.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
africa 3
Len had a piece this afternoon about contextual intelligence. He made mention that we're all required to know our context in order to know what has displaced the natural order/harmony of that context, so we can remedy the sickness/situation.
I've always found it easy and invigorating to learn and investigate the ww context, but much harder and less rewarding to learn the jackson/midwest context. This bit of discomfort I think is a further clue into my larger thinking about sacred space and geospirituality.
'Tell me where you're from and I'll tell you who you are.'
I'm from a place and a time and a cultural context. The specifics (I.e. Vancouver, new millenia, post-christian commonwealth) I think are less important than the tune or temperature of those things...but only time will tell.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
I've always found it easy and invigorating to learn and investigate the ww context, but much harder and less rewarding to learn the jackson/midwest context. This bit of discomfort I think is a further clue into my larger thinking about sacred space and geospirituality.
'Tell me where you're from and I'll tell you who you are.'
I'm from a place and a time and a cultural context. The specifics (I.e. Vancouver, new millenia, post-christian commonwealth) I think are less important than the tune or temperature of those things...but only time will tell.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
africa 2
We saw some pretty incredible things today - 2 prides of lions, buffalo, elephants within 20+metres, giraffes, monkeys...it was something else.
The actual god-stuff came into play a bit more truly today as well, I'm always an advocate of the 'everything is spiritual' motif, but - if I'm honest - I'd been disappointed so far with the 'pretty much just a safari' nature of the trip up to this point; so, I was glad that we began cultivating the explicitly spiritual and ministerial aspects today.
I asked len how vince beresford was doing in the program and he said really well. He told me that vince was his best student - which is really cool. I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable with the way our story together ended; so it feels nice to hear that he's succeeding and performing well in his new life.
I miss carmel and the kids a lot - though I've been able to get them some really cool gifts and I think that'll make the homecoming that much easier. Truly I have a wonderful family and nothing anywhere in the world could ever diminish or replace their beauty in my life.
Which makes me hope this whole experience is worth it. On the one hand - of course it is! - this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and anybody would be a fool to pass it up; on the other hand, I'm still mystical enough to believe that god has something in particular in store for me this trip and I'd like some clarity as to what that may be. It may be refueling, reorientation, comfort, clarity, security, peace, discomfort, alarm, burden, prophecy, direction, hearing, future perspective - anything really...I don't want to limit him by supposing I know what it is...but I also feel like I really couldn't tell you what I need right now.
I have so much and I'm grateful and thankful and spectacularly happy with all that god has provided for my family and I. Maybe I'll think some more about a few areas: parenthood, marriage, writing, speaking, creating, leadership, ministry at ww, ministry in general, randy, budget, vancouver, film venues, and personal spiritual development. It's funny though, even as I write down all of these diverse categories I still don't feel any special burden for any of then. It is possible that I'm simply recovering from burn out and I'm intelligent enough to know that I shouldn't push it too hard, but I don't like that answer so I don't want to accept it too quickly.
More later...
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
The actual god-stuff came into play a bit more truly today as well, I'm always an advocate of the 'everything is spiritual' motif, but - if I'm honest - I'd been disappointed so far with the 'pretty much just a safari' nature of the trip up to this point; so, I was glad that we began cultivating the explicitly spiritual and ministerial aspects today.
I asked len how vince beresford was doing in the program and he said really well. He told me that vince was his best student - which is really cool. I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable with the way our story together ended; so it feels nice to hear that he's succeeding and performing well in his new life.
I miss carmel and the kids a lot - though I've been able to get them some really cool gifts and I think that'll make the homecoming that much easier. Truly I have a wonderful family and nothing anywhere in the world could ever diminish or replace their beauty in my life.
Which makes me hope this whole experience is worth it. On the one hand - of course it is! - this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and anybody would be a fool to pass it up; on the other hand, I'm still mystical enough to believe that god has something in particular in store for me this trip and I'd like some clarity as to what that may be. It may be refueling, reorientation, comfort, clarity, security, peace, discomfort, alarm, burden, prophecy, direction, hearing, future perspective - anything really...I don't want to limit him by supposing I know what it is...but I also feel like I really couldn't tell you what I need right now.
I have so much and I'm grateful and thankful and spectacularly happy with all that god has provided for my family and I. Maybe I'll think some more about a few areas: parenthood, marriage, writing, speaking, creating, leadership, ministry at ww, ministry in general, randy, budget, vancouver, film venues, and personal spiritual development. It's funny though, even as I write down all of these diverse categories I still don't feel any special burden for any of then. It is possible that I'm simply recovering from burn out and I'm intelligent enough to know that I shouldn't push it too hard, but I don't like that answer so I don't want to accept it too quickly.
More later...
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
africa post 1
I'm keeping a video blog of my trip to africa instead of just a text blog...as a way to make it fun for my kids to watch and see. I still hold on to the belief that god has something particular here for me, though I'm not really sure what that might yet be.
To be perfectly honest, I feel like all of the major life/ministry questions have been settled for the moment. We're planning to keep our house, pursue a book/enterprise with navpress, hold off on ann arbor, have no more kids, bring randy back to work now that he's well, keep honing causemology, keep underscoring the importance of ownership, have carmel go back to work, pursue vodcasting in the new year(and potentially streaming vids & jtv), pay off our remaining debts, fix our kitchen floor and basement bathroom, buy a boat with our tenth anniversary income tax return cheque, and probably discontinue teaching at sau.
Now I'm sure that sounds like we've got it all figured out...but we've only just arrived at most of those conclusions and are still holding all of them loosely knowing that god could reverse or redirect our intention at any moment; though it must be said that the openness to god's interruption should never be an excuse for unpreparedness (we should plan as if our lives will remain on this trajectory for 100 years, but be willing to leave everything at a moment's notice in obedience to the divine perogative).
anyways - more later
To be perfectly honest, I feel like all of the major life/ministry questions have been settled for the moment. We're planning to keep our house, pursue a book/enterprise with navpress, hold off on ann arbor, have no more kids, bring randy back to work now that he's well, keep honing causemology, keep underscoring the importance of ownership, have carmel go back to work, pursue vodcasting in the new year(and potentially streaming vids & jtv), pay off our remaining debts, fix our kitchen floor and basement bathroom, buy a boat with our tenth anniversary income tax return cheque, and probably discontinue teaching at sau.
Now I'm sure that sounds like we've got it all figured out...but we've only just arrived at most of those conclusions and are still holding all of them loosely knowing that god could reverse or redirect our intention at any moment; though it must be said that the openness to god's interruption should never be an excuse for unpreparedness (we should plan as if our lives will remain on this trajectory for 100 years, but be willing to leave everything at a moment's notice in obedience to the divine perogative).
anyways - more later
africa stuff
i've been back from south africa for a little over two weeks now and am just beginning to wade through all my thoughts and notes from the trip.
i have made one little compilation video which you can see by clicking the title of this post, but there'll be more to come.
at any rate - i'm reprinting some of my blog thoughts from the trip over the next couple of posts.
thanks for reading!
i have made one little compilation video which you can see by clicking the title of this post, but there'll be more to come.
at any rate - i'm reprinting some of my blog thoughts from the trip over the next couple of posts.
thanks for reading!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
