“It’s so tempting to shut people down, to limit the upside, to ostracize, select and demonize. It makes things a lot simpler. Not seeing means you don’t have to take action. Not opening means it’s easier to announce that you’re done. And not raising the bar means you’re less likely to fail.”
“Christian courtesy is rooted and grounded in the idea that every person—however much we may dislike him or her—is made in the image of God and precious in his sight. It is an ideal that we may struggle to live up to, but the struggle makes us better people; it reminds us to show kindness when every impulse and instinct is urging us to do the opposite. It requires of us something deeper than a rally or a video, something more than the obligatory apology that follows most celebrity catfights. It’s a lifestyle that has to be consciously lived every day.”
This is one of those thoughts that just hits you while you are still half asleep… so I’m not sure how good it is, but if any of my pastor-type friends want to use it or adapt it, please do –
We come excited We come exhausted, Welcome to this place
We come hopeful We come humble Welcome to this place
We come with deepest longing We come distracted Welcome to this place
We come wondering We come wrestling Welcome to this place
We come compassionate We come confused Welcome to this place
We come joyful We come just happy to have made it through another day Welcome to this place
We come faithful We come fearful Welcome to this place
Welcome, to one and all to this place where we can be who we are confident that God meets us as we are
Welcome to this night Where angels sing and shepherds seek welcoming a King born in Bethlehem, long ago called Emmanuel: God-Is-With-Us and Still Is With Us Welcoming us receiving us redeeming us even on this Holy Night
Making Membership Mean Something. (via CTG) I’ve struggled with this idea – do you go with the “high expectation” membership standards of Ginghamsburg and others with multi-week membership classes, or with the Resurrection model (2-3 hour introduction in one afternoon). (Note: Resurrection’s membership is also “high expectation” they make very clear the expectation that membership is about responsibility, not privilege and members are expected to attend every week, give proportionally, engage in service and learning opportunities, they just present it in a different package – “belong before believe”).
20 Questions for Reviewing 2010. I haven’t sat down and answered these, but it is a great set of questions to really get you to think about the year and help clarify your values, accomplishments, and expectations.
Also from Levite Chronicles: I Hate Communication. Great reminder that the oft used phrase, “we need more communication” is fundamentally mis-communication for “we need more explanation”, “we need more affirmation”, “we need more persuasion”, “we need more confession”, etc.
Jeremy Smith with more on the UMC Call to Action Report. I get his concerns, but so far I’m not too worried about them; I’d like to believe there is a way to maintain Methodist accountability while easing up on some of the administrative rules. I was speaking with a friend last week, who brought up a greater point of how does the Call to Action report speak to the UMC as a global church – the material is clearly focused on North American congregations; how might we learn from our sisters and brothers in regions where the church is dramatically growing (ie Africa), and might we use that to become a truly global connection, letting go of the traditional US hegemony*?
*Yeah, I was a debate nerd in high school, so from time-to-time I like to bust out words like hegemony.
Another one from my favorite hasidic reggae singer celebrating the miracle of the Maccabee revolt.
Admittedly I enjoy this way more than I probably should, but it’s got to be done:
And for something a little more serious – Sufjan Stevens “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (because it IS still advent).
Another year, another batch of songs to mark the day – some old, some new; some meaningful, some in the mix just because I thought it would sound good.
Dan R. Dick on the Divided Methodist Church – this hurts to read, but in too many places he is speaking truth. Great quotes in there:
“We are not a “united” Methodist Church at the moment and focusing on program and structure when the relationships are damaged and the connection is broken promises nothing but disaster. The problem is, were we to use our General Conference time to clarify what it means to be United Methodist in the 21st century, to reframe and clarify our theological task in contemporary culture, to codify and commit to our Social Principles, and to recover the missional/evangelical foundation that defined our heritage, it would draw a line in the sand and every living, breathing United Methodist would be forced to answer the key question: do I want to be a United Methodist or not. And, being perfectly honest, we would probably lose a third to a half of our membership no matter which way we turn.”
and
“We are not “one in Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world.” We are a poster child of dysfunction and we tolerate egregious bad behavior. We communicate poorly — both in content and style — and use information as a weapon more often than as a tool.”
one more line that caught my attention
“We have been a service-provider church for so long that the concept of becoming a disciple-making church is overwhelming.”
Be sure to check out the full article. A couple weeks ago I was in conversation with some colleagues about reclaiming the “radical center” in the church, the time for these political divisions has to come to an end so we can really move forward into building the church of today and tomorrow, instead of rehashing the bitter battles of the past century. The radical center isn’t about more wishy-washy ambiguity around identity and direction, it’s about drawing on the strengths of both camps – vital piety and social holiness, and moving ahead; offering grace to those who can’t travel with us. (Of course it’s a lot easier to throw these words up on this stupid little blog than to be in the position to make some of those hard decisions).
[I wrote those words above a couple weeks ago, I haven’t quite changed my mind since then, but I do find myself feeling nervous about how this “radical center” I speak of will ultimately be understood and defined. There still needs to be room for debate and diversity… it just needs to be done in a better way. If the radical center ever becomes a call for homogeneity in thought or practice, I’d probably have to count myself as one who won’t be able to move forward into this new future.]
I was back in Iowa this last week and saw a few articles from a series the Des Moines Register is doing on East High School. I was really struck by the comment by Ruth Ann Gaines that teacher morale is the lowest she’s seen in nearly 40 years of teaching, as well as the numbers – 70% of students are on free or reduced lunch, the drop-out rate is around 29% and East has the highest numbers for student absenteeism in the city. Back when I was there it was a somewhat “rough” school – I knew there were kids coming from difficult situations, and just making it to graduation was an accomplishment for them, but it never seemed as bad as what’s being portrayed right now (my guess is the situation has gotten worse, but imagine I was also pretty blind to all that was happening even when I was there). I’m not sure what I can do from 600 miles away, but I’ve had the whole situation on my mind for the last couple days. There are a couple teachers still on staff from when I was a student there, and if nothing else I think I’ll be sending them long-overdue thank you notes for their work.
I’ve posted this before, but it’s worth watching again – Taylor Mali on “What Teachers Make” (warning: some objectionable language and a hand gesture).
Not much really stood out over the past couple weeks, just a couple of posts that caught my attention:
I got hung-up trying to figure out a good song to put up this week… eventually went with Derek Webb, “This Too Shall Be Made Right” – seems like a good song that captures the anticipation of Advent – Luke 1:46-55
I wish I could go back and talk to myself when I was twenty. I’d say to myself “listen, don’t worry about the things you’ve been worrying about. Everything is going to work out great.” And I’d likely clarify with myself that “In the future I get everything I need?” And I’d say back to myself “No, you just realize you didn’t need it. And that’s even better.”
Seth Godin on Why We Prefer Live. I had the chance to hear Jim Walker (pastor of Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community) and he made the comment that we live in a world where with a click of a button we can hear great preaching any time of any day. While the church needs to use social media to reach new people, we also have to offer the very thing you can’t get over the internet – face-to-face interactions, high-touch experiences, and the power that comes when people are gathered together in the same room.
I haven’t played with this, but it looks interesting – RedNotebook which is a wiki/journaling program (unfortunately Windows and Linux only). Also, via Lifehacker, 10 Things to Know about Photography Law.
Tough look at Detroit from Mother Jones (contains some objectionable language).
November 17 is National Unfriend Day… I’d already been thinking about paring down my Facebook friends, maybe this will be the time to do it.
Build your own home for $5000. Seems like an interesting project, probably not in my future (especially if I want to stay married).
I picked up the latest Eels album last week and have been enjoying it, Tomorrow Morning is the name of it available at all the usual places.
Levite Chronicles has some good thoughts on giving gifts that have meaning to the recipient. The point is to offer gifts that will bring lasting memories, but I found myself wondering about those gifts that churches often provide to first time visitors as well – are they meaningful, do they create lasting impressions, or is it just a cheap, disposable, easily forgotten item, with little long-term value or association?
Donald Miller on The Fear of Doing – I love this line: “Perhaps we should not put our energy into criticism, we should accept the challenge to squash what we do not like by creating something better.” Stop criticizing, start creating!
Seth Godin on Childish vs Child-like. Jesus calls us to be child-like, so why do we spend so much time in the church acting childish?
Leadership Network tells of how Darius Rucker writes 77 songs to get 12 good ones. How many ideas are we willing to work on and discard so that we might discover excellence? Are we willing do endure failure for future glory, or do we just give up, or settle for mediocrity before we get to the destination?
is the name of it available at all the usual places.
