SMITCHing

For Christmas 2011, my pastor spoke about the significance of the manger. It's mentioned three times in Luke's Gospel, and he made the point that this repetition is meant to focus us in that image. A place where the hungry are fed. He also pointed out that Bethlehem means "house of bread". So we have another intersection to the idea of feeding the hungry. Why did God choose these places: a small town called the House of Bread and a feed trough? Could it be that He understood our hunger? That all of the things which promise to satisfy us will ultimately leave us empty, except for one. Jesus. Who came to offer Himself unreservedly to us. The story of Jesus birth in Luke's account foreshadows John's record of Jesus own claim that he is the Bread of Life, and the only one who can satisfy our deepest hunger.

Richard Foster, in his excellent book on prayer , offers a refreshing look at an all too familiar topic. What struck me was the multi-faceted way in which he examined prayer. I had always thought of prayer as me talking to God about stuff. Simple? Yes. Stupid? Maybe, but my approach was certainly not exhaustive of the subject, as I learned from Foster. Since reading his book, I've stumbled on a new form of prayer that I've never seen before, at least not in a Christian context. Kinetic prayer. Never heard of it? Me neither until I made it up. After I Googled it, I realized the term may have existed prior to my "ah ha!", but I at least can add a little meaning to it. My wife practices kinetic prayer. In fact, I think she may have invented it. We attend a larger church with a big auditorium filled with about 1200-1300 folks at a given service. In the back of the room, dead center, is our tech booth: a small structure that houses sound, lighting and presentatio...

With his famous, "I think, therefore I am.", Descarte changed the intellectual landscape of Western Civilization. No longer was the Church the sole arbiter of truth. No longer did divine revelation constitute the source of truth. Instead, skepticism had begun its reign. It's been a long run. From the intellectual salons of Enlightenment Europe to the "show me" attitude of 21st century Missourians, we trust only that which we can verify. Doubt is our guard, and it keeps us from error. Yesterday , I began to wonder if his rule is crumbling. I attended  New Wine, New Wineskins conference entitled Worship in the Matrix . The event focused on the intersection of worship and technology. The featured speaker was a fine scholar from Calvin College, Quentin Schultze . He gave a plenary talk on the influence of technology in our society and its impact on the church. It was funny, informative, and deeply disturbing. At the heart of his talk was the assumption th...

Earlier this month my church kicked off a conference we're hosting for the North Pacific District of the Foursquare Church. The theme is Fully Known, with keynote presentations by a group of guys who run a ministry called True Faced. They've created a powerful story about knowing and being fully known. It sings of grace, and authenticity born of a hatred for two-faced living that traps people in self-protective lies. Their assertion? There's no true freedom apart from God's relational Gospel of grace. They were brought to that conviction by the failure of an autonomous sin-management theology.  Those terms, "relational Gospel of grace" and "autonomous sin-management theology", probably require some explanation. The team from TrueFaced sees a relational Gospel of grace as grounded in the inter-trinitarian life of God where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share an intimacy and transparency in love that is the model for all relationships. This requi...

I recently attended a service at a small church plant in Berkley, Emeryville actually. The pastor didn't preach, but gave a talk on the church's core values, during which he referenced seeking God's Presence. It coincided with recent discussions in my own church about the very same topics: values and the Presence of God. I began to think about valuing God's Presence, and I really like that particular phrase. Christians often talk of seeking God's Presence, as if it's possible to withdraw from it. But David writes distinctly about that impossibility in Psalm 139, when he asks: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?" It's a good question. It also indicates a theology of Presence that says God is always present to us. The only distance we ever experience from an omnipresent God is relational. It makes sense when you read the Scriptures, which say that he isn't far from those who seek Him, and we gen...

I'm blessed to have very talented artists for friends. One in particular, Cindy Kenny, recently appeared in a video adaptation of a Christian drama entitled "The Stool". You can see it here , but I'll offer a brief synopsis before commenting. A beautiful and vivacious young woman approaches a young man on stage holding a stool out in front of her. She presents it as a gift to the young man, who is cast as Jesus. He's honored, but tells her that whoever sits on that stool gets to make all the decisions. He asks if that's what she really wants. She enthusiastically agrees, telling "Jesus" that she really wants him to make all the decisions for her. He agrees and sits down on the stool. The woman is then joined consecutively by two friends who invite her to participate with them in something. The first friend wants to do something bad, and then the second wants to do something good. Jesus says "no" to the bad invitation and "yes"...

I want to be happy. I also want my wife and children to be happy. In that sense I'm like every other father out there. Except maybe for one. God is a Father, and He seems far more interested in us being good. Like His Son. This view flies in the face of contemporary preaching in a movement dubbed "the Prosperity Gospel" that centers itself on the conviction that God is chiefly concerned with our happiness. He doesn't want us to be sick, or poor, or touched by any of life's troubles. He wants us to be healthy, well-off, happy King's kids. All we need are the right tools. We need to have our minds changed about God, and we need to learn how to properly use "faith". In this view, faith become s a lever that activates God. He responds like an indulgent father by giving us whatever we ask for, and we become semi-autonomous initiators of God's blessings. We can "name it and claim it" in an ever self-indulgent pursuit of happiness. ...

Okay, I'll admit it. I like Gumby. Not the snarling angry Gumby played by Eddie Murphy, but the infinitely positionable toy Gumby. The Gumby of Saturday morning cartoons. You could make him do almost anything. He was revolutionary. When other dolls—sorry, action figures —had only a severely limited range of motion, Gumby could do anything you wanted him to. At least until the wire armature inside him disintegrated from metal fatigue. He was yours to do with as you pleased. I was reminded of Gumby while talking with a friend recently. Martin French is an incredibly talented illustrator and the Chair of the Illustration department at PNCA, and we've been friends for more than 30 years. He recently painted the image you see on the left. It's entitled, Slave King . You can see his post about the art here . We were discussing people's reaction to his painting, and he mentioned one in particular. The person said they didn't like the image because it portrayed ...

A lot of really smart, well-trained folks are spending loads of time on Bell. Here's a good compilation of salient conversation about Love Wins . Credit to Rick McKinley for the link via Twitter.

In chapters two and three of his new book Love Wins A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived , Rob Bell get's into two out of his three promised topics. He tackles heaven first. Probably a good choice. Bell immediately begins to question popular evangelical notions of heaven as a literal place. He makes his exegesis accessible, something he's particularly good at. Anyone who is really interested in what the Scriptures mean, can sympathize with Bell's desire to question more recently accepted interpretations of what the Bible tells us of heaven and hell. The author is careful to offer much of his critique as leading questions, and I'm left with the resulting sense that he's constantly screwing up his face and asking, "WTF?" while writing this book. Is that bad? Is he wrong for doing that? No. He's doing exactly what Martin Luther and other early Reformers did. He's asking questions arising from his study of Scriptur...

Yesterday I snagged the digital edition of Rob Bel l's new book Love Wins A Book about Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person You Ever Lived . I love buying books for less than half of what they used to cost. And Bell's a star, so there's also that I'm-a-famous-author-now premium you pay for books like his in print. I plan to post about it here, responding chapter-by-chapter to what I'm reading. Having read his first book, Velvet Elvis , I'll admit that my tastes don't really run in Bell's direction, but I was intrigued enough by advance publicity to read his latest. The advance promotions stirred up a significant controversy among leading evangelicals. For example, John Piper upon hearing of the publisher's promotions tweeted " Farewell Rob Bell ". Before any of the most critical leaders had had a chance read it, they were sure that Bell had finally put his cards on the table and come out of the closet as a universalist. Maybe. ...

While I appreciate the naive idealism, this makes me a little nervous. Even a cursory look at western history would show that mash-ups of politics and religion do not have a track record of ending well.

I'm pretty sure I have a new friend, and like all of my other friends. I love him. The weird part is, I've never spent more than a few hours with him in over a year. Not since the day we met. I've been thinking a lot about why I love him and why I consider him a friend. Usually I make friends in a more typical manner. I meet someone. There are qualities about them that attract me. We hang out, get to know each other, and a mutual bond of affection forms which strengthens over time. This one's different. I first met Russell at a Thanksgiving "after party" hosted by a mutual friend. A group of us gathered at Mark's place after our respective family dinners to hang out and play games like Apples and Apples and Catch Phrase. I had never met Russell before, but Mark's a hospitable guy and it's not unusual for his friends from different circles to meet one another at an impromptu game night. Of the dozen or so folks who were there, three o...