Here and Now

So I spent the last two days helping to replace a hundred feet of sidewalk for a parishioner. Man, concrete work is really demanding (I was going to say "Concrete is hard work" but, well, the pun...you know...) and my back and knees and...frankly, every part of me hurts right now... (okay, that's not a picture of the actual sidewalk replaced...I forgot my camera, okay?) But, that's not the important thing. We tried several times to get guys from the church to come out, but the homeowner really wanted it done on weekdays - otherwise there was a pretty steep additional charge for the concrete (most of which she was getting for free from the city as part of what they call the "pridewalk" program) - so that limited the number of people who could help. Most of the women from the church who were able, schedule-wise, to help, didn't feel they could do the work physically... So... that left me and Stan from the church on Monday (Stan is an EMT and all-around gre...

I broke the rules, but I didn't do anything wrong. So, why do I feel kinda guilty? Here's the thing. We have this municipal parking lot where you get a ticket when you go in and then when you leave you stop at a little booth to pay your fee. The first half hour is free and then it goes up in quarter increments (okay, this isn't the biggest town in Western PA, okay?). So, I'm only in there like 20 minutes but when I stop at the little booth, it's locked up. Now what do I do with my little ticket? The RULES say I have to turn it in...but, I don't owe anything...um... So, it was a really little moment in my otherwise fascinating and exciting life - but as I was pulling away clutching the ticket I felt...weird. You know, I didn't do anything wrong...but I broke the rules... And I wonder if Jesus ever felt that way when he healed on the Sabbath. Okay, maybe that's a bad example because Jesus is...well...GOD. So, how about Peter and John. Do you think those gu...

So we were talking about chaos theory and the butterfly effect yesterday in my youth class (heh, probably not your standard youth fare...but it applied) and I remembered a quote from An Unstoppable Force (the book I'm teaching in our adult Sunday School class right now) by Erwin McManus that ties into this new line of thinking that God is leading me on - our deep interconnectedness. Okay, this is kinda long, so bear with me: "When God creates, he creates with relational integrity. Everything is connected and fits together. This is true not only in the physical realm, but even more so in the spiritual. The Bible tells us that when man sinned, all creation groaned. "Those who study science have told us that a butterfly fluttering its wings in South America could, in some sense, be the primary cause of an avalanche in Antarctica. This level of complexity strikes us as new and innovative, and yet the Scriptures have advocated this kind of interconnection for thousands of y...

As a tie-in to the last post: I just saw a group of daycare kids walking down the street "attached" to a bright, lime-green rope. I don't know how common this "chain gang" daycare travel method is, but everytime I see it I smile (you have an adult at the front and one in the rear - and then this long line of kids holding on to a rope - sometimes with straps over their wrists "attaching" them to the rope). Of course, there's nothing like a bunch of little kids to make me smile. And then I thought, "Sandpeople travel in single file to hide their numbers..." Man, I am a geek. But... Here's what also struck me. Last week's Gospel reading in the lectionary was the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin and on the GBOD website Taylor Burton Edwards asked some pretty pointed questions: So who has gotten lost where the people of your congregation live and work? How do people in your congregation treat these people? ...

Well, it's not snowy season yet, but I was thinking about snow the other day. Now, once the weather gets cold enough around here that cars need to "defrost," I usually get up early with Lori and clear her car off for her (heh - which usually just involves starting it and letting it idle with the heat on - but sometimes I actually have to brush the snow off the car, too...). Anyway, when it's snowy and I make fresh prints in the snow, invariably I think of this scene from Star Wars: A New Hope (that would be Episode 4 - of course we all just knew it as Star Wars...but I digress): So when I make tracks in the snow, I always walk back in the very same tracks (heh, I guess "to hide th[e] numbers..."). I don't know why I do it - maybe I'm just a little bit neurotic, I don't know, or maybe I'm just the uber-geek that people think I am... But what I have come to realize is that I hold on to stuff from movies in my head for a long time. Scenes, i...

So I discovered this video this morning and, well, it was my youth... Now, if you don't get it - or if you just think it was "cute" or something - then you probably won't like Dork Tower either... (and if you DID get it...or, um, lived it...check out the Dork Tower archives - of course, if you lived it, you've already read the DT archives...) Ah, youth...wasted on the...thoughts of whether Spidey could take the Hulk... Oh, he could, definitely...

So we're trying to get Scott Phillips to come to The Crossing *** for opening night - that would be New Year's Eve - so I've been listening to his stuff a lot lately . I had two albums (the first self-titled and the newest one, Next Stop Willoughby which is, by the way, an amazing album) and I've purchased the other two (man, itunes is an addiction - I need to join IA or something). *** sorry - right now it's just a link to the survey - go ahead and take it, though. I'll wait. Really. Go ahead... Anyway, I've been in a pretty deep funk for a week or so - it's all stuff that I've brought on myself (if you must know, my defense mechanism for stress is avoidance - so when there's something I don't want to do - or something that's causing me stress - I procrastinate - and I can do that in a HUGE way - in fact, if it were an Olympic event, I'd be a world champion). So, I've dug a hole - more of a pit - no, how about gaping chasm... A...

Through a series of links (you know how the web works - I'm reading this blog, which links to this one, which links to this site, and on and on...) I came across this site with nominations for America's Most Innovative Churches (with Outreach Magazine) and I checked out the form for "nominating a church" and one of the questions asked was, "What makes a church innovative?" So, what DOES make a church innovative? Is it a cool website or having a Starbucks in the parking lot - so the folk waiting for the shuttlebus to the sanctuary can be refreshed before they are brought into the carefully designed for traffic flow entry/lobby where they can get another latte and even a muffin to take into the "worship space" to watch the "pre-show" entertain...uh, ministry and, perhaps, chat with one of the carefully selected Official Greeters (tm)... Sorry if I sound a little sarcastic... It's not that there's anything inherently wrong with all ...

Double Post Wednesday.... Read somewhere the other day something about evangelism. The core of the message was: we've been too busy trying to get people saved FROM hell, when we ought to be busy getting people saved INTO the Kingdom of God. It's a huge difference, and one that I really hadn't given a lot of thought to. But think about this: if all the emphasis is placed on getting people to "say the sinner's prayer" or whatever, once a person gets to that point - let's call it repentance and acceptance of Jesus as their Lord and Savior - what's left? If your goal is to "get them saved" - well, you've done it. So, drop 'em like hot spuds and look for the next sinner to grab by the collar and get all "Jesus in their face" til they repent. OR... We could welcome people INTO something. The sad truth is that too many churches don't have any "something" going on, so they can only offer saving people from hell and...

Well, two things have come together again and my mind is spinning. First, the article on Mother Teresa and the very, very...um, VERY long dark night of her soul that Time Magazine reported on not long ago. It seems time and again that Teresa complained that God was distant - even so distant as to seem to not exist (though she only makes THAT complaint once). Still, I get it. I've been going through that kind of struggle, though not to the depth or length of Teresa's... Then I read a quote in a sermon from William Stringfellow, "Prayer is being so alone that God is the only witness to your existence." I need that place right now. I suspect that Teresa found that place often enough, but she never could shake the feeling that God wasn't witnessing her existence. I wonder if God wasn't closer than ever - so close that she couldn't sense Him becasue God was overwhelming her. I wonder sometimes if we could dive so deeply into Christ that we wouldn't see...