Been re-listening to Adele’s interview with Peter Rollins over on the podcast.
Really digging his parallel between the Kingdom of God and TAZ moments (which he best describes as a flash mob).
Continue reading The Kingdom of God is like a flash mob
Tag: kingdom of God
Monday Briefs
Highlights of the week ::
Well it wasn’t anything we originally planned, but Laurie and I were able to celebrate our second anniversary on Friday and Saturday night. Friday night we made our annual visit to Outback Steakhouse and enjoyed some great steak, a bloomin’ onion, a large Foster beer (for me) and a desert sampler (for her – even though I probably ate more than her). We then came home and watched Bride Wars while snuggling on the couch (in case you wanted to know).
Saturday we had plans to go to Fort Worth for the day, but because of the forecasted rain, I did yard work and she did a few things around the house, like ironing some shirts for me (THANKS!). Then we decided to enjoy some Royal Burgers at Red Robin. Then we came home and snuggled on the couch again, watching Slumdog Millionaire.
Hopefully we’ll be able to make our planned day trip to Fort Worth before too long.
Quote I’m diggin and chewing on ::
“A Christian should be able to go to the White House, a crack house, their momma’s house or any house and come out with their integrity, vision, compassion, and commitment to justice intact.
If the Kingdom of God is within you, then everywhere you go you should leave a little heaven behind. People will know you to be a heaven leaver. You can learn to love your crooked neighbor with your own crooked heart because you’re connected to a power and grace greater than your ego.”
I’m wondering and chewing on this: I leaving a bit of heaven or hell online, offline, in your house, in my house, in my car, in my marriage, in my relationships, in my family, in my job, in my church?
Movies of recent days ::
Three movies in three days?! That’s just unheard of around these parts! But as I mentioned above, we watched Bride Wars and Slumdog Millionaire this weekend and then I watched The Wrestler on Sunday afternoon.
Bride Wars was as expected, a “chick-flick.” I think Laurie liked it but said it wasn’t one she’d go out and buy.
Slumdog Millionaire was really good in my mind. Something different and challenging. Showed a side of India that we don’t typically see and also challenged me to continue thinking about how we so often slap labels on people far too quickly.
The Wrestler was OK but as I mentioned on Facebook, not one I’d watch with my parents :-). It was a bit crude at times and having one of the main characters working at a strip club didn’t help the matter. From the little I know, it was pretty accurate to the story of the indie wrestling scene. I think I kept waiting to see the redemption story in the movie but I don’t feel like it ever came. Perhaps (for those who’ve seen it) Ram’s redemption came in pushing through and living out his passion, with a finger to the rest of the world or maybe there was another sub-narrative I missed. Or perhaps there was no redemption story. What’d you think?
#nanowrimo update ::
I finally finished the first edit of my novel, St. Peter’s Brewery. I still have a couple spots I want to re-work, but now I can start making the edits from my read-through as well as the others several other folks submitted. If I can stay on task, perhaps the book will be ready for release by July? We’ll hope so.
Looking forward to ::
I can’t actually think of much right now that I’m looking forward to. Seems a bit depressing? I’ll keep you posted if I can think of something.
Till next week….
The Kingdom of God is like a truck driver
“The joy is the journey not the destination”
Listen to more of Frank’s story on the Something Beautiful Podcast.
Kingdom of God leaders
I’ve been reading Frank Viola’s “Reimagining Church” over the last week or so. It’s been a great companion to go along with Brian’s message series (priests in the hood). The book also seems to apply directly to what I envision for our community groups at encounter (and beyond).
This morning I read Luke 22:25-26:
Within minutes they were bickering over who of them would end up the greatest. But Jesus intervened: “Kings like to throw their weight around and people in authority like to give themselves fancy titles. It’s not going to be that way with you. Let the senior among you become like the junior; let the leader act the part of the servant.
As community group leaders/facilitators/hosts I think Viola makes some great points about what we should avoid striving for and what we should strive for:
- in the gentile (secular) world, leaders operate on the basis of a political, chain-of-command social structure — a graded hierarchy. in the kingdom of God, leadership flows from childlike meekness and sacrificial service.
- in the gentile world, authority is based on position and rank. in the kingdom of God, authority is based on godly character. note Christ’s description of a leader: “let him be a servant,” and “let him be as the younger.” in our Lord’s eyes, being precedes doing. and doing flows from being. put differently, function follows character. those who serve do so because they are servants.
- in the gentile world, greatness is measured in prominence, external power and political influence. in the kingdom of God, greatness is measured by humility and servitude.
- in the gentile world, leaders exploit their positions to rule over others. in the kingdom of god, leaders deplore special reverence. they rather regard themselves “as the younger.”
I hope and pray that we’re all being leaders/facilitators/hosts that fit in with the kingdom of God model and not the gentile/worldly model that surrounds us everywhere we go. I also pray that each of us are encouraging our group members to do the same. By becoming servants to all, leadership will be a natural extension to them all.
Brian McLaren speaks at Mars Hill
Former pastor and author Brian McLaren spoke at Brian McLaren’s church, Mars Hill, this past week.
He spoke on the six different narratives we find ourselves trapped in from time to time.
Much of it is similar to what he writes in “Everything Must Change.”
Very good stuff.
Our Father, above us and all around us,
May your unspeakable Name be revered.
Here on earth may your kingdom come … on earth as in heaven
may your will be done.
Give us today our bread for today.
And forgive us our wrongs as we forgive.
Lead us away from the perilous trial,
But liberate us from the evil.
For the kingdom is yours and yours alone, the power is yours and
yours alone, and the glory is yours and yours alone, now and
forever. Amen.
Listen.
View the notes.
re: Everything Must Change
Some more thoughts from Chp 3 of Brian McLaren’s Everything Must Change:
Trying to spur some more discussion for our book club….
In Chp 3 McLaren talks about his visit to Bujumbura in Africa. As a meeting he was scheduled to speak at began he writes that the guy who brought him to the conference says that as a son of a preacher and going to church all his life, sometimes five times a week, in all his childhood he “only heard one sermon.”
Ouch! He says that one sermon was heard over and over again every week. “You are a sinner and you are going to hell. You need to repent and believe in Jesus. Jesus might come back today, and if he does and you are not ready, you will burn in hell.”
Growing up I can’t say that this was the case for me, but then again I can’t say I remember any sermons from my childhood through probably high school.
After graduating high school I began attending Baptist churches, including on very conservative Baptist church and I would say that that was almost the case for that particular church – only mixing in sermons about the importance of tithing.
How does that compare to your life growing up? How does that compare to English and Scottish churches or churches around the rest of the world? How do messages like that help Christians grow?
Is that typical in other churches? Do our churches continue to ignore ideas like hatred, distrust between tribes/neighbors, poverty, suffering, corruption, injustice? I feel that at encounter we’re closer to addressing these issues but we could be doing more.
“They told us how to go to heaven. But they left out an important detail. They didn’t tell us how the will of God could be done on earth.”
McLaren suggests this isn’t just an African problem – and I would tend to agree. Did North American church leaders teach the early colonists to treat the Native Peoples with love and respect? Did they consistently and with one voice appose slavery? Did they express outrage over the exploitation of factory workers or the second-class status of women? Did they/do we stand up for refugees and immigrants? Did they oppose white privilege, segregation, anti-Semitism, stereotyping or Muslims and other forms of ethnic prejudice? Did they see the environment as God’s sacred creation that deserves to be cherished and conserved?
Lots of places I believe the church has failed and continues to fail…
Jesus continued to talk about “the kingdom of God.” McLaren says this idea – contrary to popular belief – was not focused on how to escape this world and its problems by going to heaven after death, but instead was focused on how God’s will could be done on earth, in history, during this life.
McLaren continues and says the Gospel is not just a message about Jesus that focuses on the afterlife – but that the Gospel is the core message of Jesus that focuses on personal, social and global transformation in this life.
What does that mean to you? Is that idea contrary to your beliefs? Does it help answer some of the questions about your faith?