I was a shepherd in the traditional/conventional church. I also served as a deacon, a preacher, and a missionary. Today I believe more in the church of Bob Evans every Sunday afternoon, the church at Starbucks on Friday evenings and then there is my new institutional church at a University Hospital. (FYI—degrees in Nuclear Medicine and Bible; chose to make my living from the medical side)

For employees who have excessive absenteeism or a history of tardiness there is a policy that places them in a process with the end result being dismissal (verbal warning, written warning, etc) I choose not to do that. Instead I invite them into my office and use the wisdom that comes with sixty years of life and the spiritual wisdom God has blessed me with nudging them closer to success and Jesus (this is my policy and the process I choose). I really believe if I died tomorrow the employees of this institution would carry signs to my funeral expressing their love for me.

And then there are the folks at New Wineskins who encourage me in my wacky writings and the conversations I have with the many I talk with in Christian circles.

I am blessed!

Files under Church, Culture, How to Live, Jesus, conventional church, conversation, future church, influence, love, missional, orbiting the church, revolution, unchurched | |

I’ve changed my mind so many times the reversals would be too long to list. Yet to challenge the thinker I’ve listed five flip-flops:

1. Ten years, five years ago, I agreed with the attractional church (its focus on relevant worship, music, etc) and the idea that “if you don’t like it, go somewhere else.” Retrospectively, I see things very different today
2. I far prefer the contemplative style over the contemporary. Lights dimmed, candles, icons, Celtic crosses, with a small group of musicians playing (maybe) hammered dulcimer, harp, guitar, and wooden flute
3. From my perception, the 1990s throwback assemblies, organ, old refurbed buildings, choirs, and special choirs has a strange reverence about them
4. Is objective truth tangentially relevant to the human condition? Objective truth unknowingly often becomes subjective truth because what is experienced is always perceived through the filter of our humanness. Whether known by the person or not, the validity of truth depends on the accuracy of perception
5. Related to my ten years ago, I mean five years ago post (see #1) I’ve exchanged cultural relevancy for cultural maker

Files under Church, Culture, truth | |

Over at Jesus Manifesto.com Michael Cline writes an article every voter should read. Although not the main point of the article Mr. Cline makes an astute observation, of which the reader can easily overlook if not careful–Western Christianity’s one hundred year failure; cultural-driven exchanged for cultural relevance. 

Rather than express Christian revelation in a way that is specific and adequate to the social realities in which we live, as Jacques Ellul writes, the Church too often “looks for ways to adapt Christianity to the dominant intellectual and sociological trend.” As a result, we guarantee ourselves a “small place in the new social order.”

Read the article The New Christians Kool-Aid

Files under Barack Obama, Culture, attractional church, future church | 1 Comment | 1 Comment »

There are a couple of challenging reads I want to suggest to the readers out there. The first is a short 16 page download. You can get it for $1.00. Not bad.

Here’s a brief review: 

The line between American culture and Biblical conviction has been irrevocably blurred since the Pilgrims and Puritans made landfall on our shores. The sad fact of Christianity in the United States is that our theology has been more informed by the culture than the reverse. If anyone has any doubts, Fred puts them to rest using the example of our country’s preoccupation with alcohol consumption. When we have otherwise intelligent scholars trying to convince us that Jesus turned the water into the oxymoronic “non-alcoholic” or “non-intoxicating” wine, it is high time to acknowledge that our culture is driving our theology rather than our theology being based on sound Bible study. –Rick Chromey; Kentucky Christian University

Abstinence or Moderation? : Liberty or Law? [link to a dollar download]

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The second offering is a 116 page book that Jim Henderson of Off The Map called the “best missional book on the market.” It an easy read with lots of stories and one of the first books by an emergent that can claim to be more a construct than deconstruct. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. You can find a link to the book on the left side bar near the bottom of this page. Just start scrolling down…

 

Files under Culture, bible, book review, missional | |

Read my conversation with Alan Hirsch, the author of The Forgotten Ways [here]

I was shocked when I heard that Leonard Sweet had accepted the position left vacant at Grace Community Church with the firing of John MacArthur. Read the complete story [here]

Files under Alan Hirsch, April Fool, Consumerism, Culture, Evangelism, Interviews, Leonard Sweet, conventional church, conversation, emergent, mission, missional | 2 Comments | 2 Comments »

In his new book, Who’s Your City? Richard Florida examines how “mega-regions” are driving the global economy and how each one is informed by its own distinct personality. Where we choose to live, argues Florida, is crucial not only to how we live and who we share our lives with, but also to what kind of career we end up having.

 The maps above (called geographical clustering) are dictated by five basic personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. What I find interesting is his conclusions. Florida asks an intriguing question.

“What if skill is more than education and more than work? The type of skill economists are interested in, he writes, “implies something that can be acquired with proper training, talent, motivation, and resources.” But, he adds, “It’s more consistent with personality theory to argue that personality traits predispose people to acquire certain skills.

 Agreeableness is associated with jobs in management and health care. And, while it is positively associated with innovation, high-tech industry, wages, and income in our more advanced models, the effects are quite small. This could mean that the ability to work well with others contributes, albeit slightly, to innovation.

Neuroticism is negatively associated with top talent in the form of human capital or the super-creative class. In more advanced models, it also turns out to be negatively associated with the creative class, high-tech industry, and wages. In other words, regions with high concentrations of highly educated and ultra-creative individuals tend to be more emotionally stable, less volatile, and more resilient. This suggests, among other things, that these are places where people may be more likely to take risks because they’re less concerned about failure.

Extroversion is significantly correlated with management and sales jobs, but it too has no effect on human capital overall, high-tech jobs, or regional income.

Richard Florida and the Creative Class Exchange

Files under Culture, Richard Florida, creative, creative class, creativite, global | |

I’ve spent a lot of time watching (and expositing) culture to the neglect of personal bible study. Publicly, I’ve argued that we need to spend as much time lucubrating culture as we have given to expositing Scripture. Maybe it’s an unconscious neglect based upon a belief that my Scriptural knowledge far exceeds my ability to obey what I know (I know more bible than I’ll ever obey). I need to find my way back to the middle.

Files under Culture, bible | |

There are several versions of e-mails making there way across cyberspace insinuating that Senator Obama is secretly a Muslim who attended a radical Islamic school in Indonesia. One of the e-mails charges that as a Muslim he refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Another e-mail claims that he was sworn into the Senate using a copy of the Quran. FYI—all of the allegations are false.

According to Snopes.com the Muslim scare is the “hottest” urban legend on the internet.

Files under Barack Obama, Culture, Presidential Canidates, politics | |

According to Forbes, 3.8 million Americans are in commuter marriages and the number is growing. Since 2000, 30% more Americans had long distance relationships where their work kept them apart for days at a time. Forbes says that technology has fueled the pattern:

But while innovations like e-mail, video chatting, instant messaging, Twitter and Second Life have increased the volume of Internet chatter, they haven’t necessarily made long-distance relationships any more successful, Guldner says. Communication’s quality, he says, has always meant more than its frequency.”Information technology has definitely led people to believe that long-distance relationships will work more than in the past,” says Guldner. “Whether that’s true is the big question we’re dealing with right now.”

-from PSFK; Piers Fawkes

Files under Culture | |

• Dick Staub suggests that we all read the article in the March issue of “The Atlantic” God’s Country, an article about Christianity and Islam battling it out for religious superiority in Nigeria. Here in Africa’s most populous nations (140 million, one seventh of Africa) and wealthiest nation (one tenth of oil reserves) we learn that “using militias and marketing strategies,” Christianity and Islam are competing for believers by promising Nigerians prosperity in this world as well as salvation in the next. The Staublog
• The Bible is the fastest selling book in Western culture (averaging fifty copies a minute) while outpacing all others as the most shoplifted book. The History Channel
• 2000 new automobiles are added to the roads of China daily. MSNBC

Files under Culture | |