Twenty-Nine

Bird book. (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 25 May 2012 09:15:33 -0700

Bird book. (Taken with instagram)

Another piece of preparation for next month’s Ireland...

Fri, 11 May 2012 22:06:04 -0700

Another piece of preparation for next month’s Ireland trip. Thanks, Mom! (Taken with instagram)

First match! Go @BhamUnitedFC! (Taken with Instagram at Civic...

Sun, 06 May 2012 13:54:23 -0700

First match! Go @BhamUnitedFC! (Taken with Instagram at Civic Field)

Tonight I’m speaking at the INN, sharing on how growing...

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:33:13 -0700

Tonight I’m speaking at the INN, sharing on how growing requires us to engage, challenge, ask questions, and push ourselves. I’m highlighting many of the books that have influenced me and caused me to move “further up and further in” in this pursuit of God. It’s always fun to recall these significant friends…

Book Biography #2: A New Kind of Christian

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 21:04:03 -0700

Next week, I’ll be speaking at the INN University Ministries on the concept of growing in faith by becoming people who can receive the solid foods of the Spirit, moving beyond the basics, and developing adult, mature practices. Leading up to this, I’ll be discussing some books that have shaped me since my time as a student until now.

In my first post of this series, I described a book that started me down a path of discovery in terms of faith. This post, I’ll highlight a book that challenged my whole faith altogether and brought me out on the other side with excitement, hope, and many, many questions.

A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey by Brian McLaren stacks up as another of the most significant books in my biography. Like the first post, it isn’t the most academically difficult or challenging book. Rather, this story (it’s really just a creative piece of fiction) was incredibly thought-provoking and helped me shift my frame of reference.

If you’re unfamiliar with Brian McLaren’s work, he has been a huge catalyst in the conversation of the emerging church. Books like More Ready Than Your Realize, A Generous Orthodoxy, and A New Kind of Christianity have made huge contributions to the conversation surrounding the next chapter of church and faith in the postmodern context. For me, A New Kind of Christian and the subsequent two books in the series (The Story We Find Ourselves In and The Last Word) were eye-opening, challenging stories that pushed me to approach my faith with new perspectives and a new heart.

During college, I began to take steps to learn more about God and my own faith identity, and these books took me in to new places where I could consider how I would live that faith out. They pushed back against typical models of “how we do church” and opened wide the door to question and consider if there might be better, more contextually rich ways of being Christ’s hands and feet in the world. I had never considered that there might be other ways of how we would approach shaping our congregations for gathering each week or exploring how our language shaped culture and therefore shaped our articulations of the gospel message!

As I write about my book biography, I hope to encourage others to look back on what they have taken in over the years and how it has brought them to where they are. I also challenge us to consider what might be ahead of us. How might we open ourselves up more to hearing God’s voice teaching us? How might we engage with thoughts and ideas that are challenging, possibly stretching us beyond our comfort zone? This book, A New Kind of Christian, pushed me through questions of the essentials of my faith. It challenged me to evaluate all the things I took for granted, to grapple with and affirm the things that truly matter, and discard many things that do not.

More coming soon in this series. This is a lot of fun.

Inhabit Conference in Seattle

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:31:28 -0700

I’m getting pretty excited to head down to Seattle tomorrow for the Inhabit Conference at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. If you haven’t heard, Inhabit is a gathering of ministry practitioners, coming together to talk about the work of the gospel in our neighborhoods. There is an amazing movement of pastors, ministry leaders, and others in the nonprofit world seeing hope in the local, parish-focused church. Inhabit is a gathering of folks dedicated to developing this conversation, exploring models of “slow church”, local church, neighborhood church.

The weekend should be a lot of fun and hopefully thought-provoking. Some of my fellow INN staff members went last year and the conference inspired a lot of our work this year, helping us focus our work with the parish/neighborhood of Western Washington University. I also, selfishly, am excited to spend time with a couple of good friends from my home church (FPC Bellingham), Kyle and Nick, as well as make new friends and become better acquainted with folks at the grad school I’ll be attending in the fall for a Masters in Theology & Culture!

There is still space available, so if you’re in Seattle and have an open weekend, you should join us tomorrow and Saturday. http://www.inhabitconference.com/

Book Biography #1: The Sacred Romance

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 22:36:00 -0700

The summer after my freshmen year of college was an interesting one. I had spent the first year of school at Western Washington University and loved it. I learned a lot about myself, my identity, and who I was as a follower of Jesus. Many questions rose to the surface that summer, as I was apart from the community I’d established in Bellingham and now trying to make sense of the growth that had taken place over the past year.

This was the summer I discovered the “Christian book”. Looking for reading materials that would stimulate some of my mind and heart that summer (and were not textbooks), I stumbled across the Family Christian bookstore. As much as I now have a mostly-negative relationship with these establishments (mostly for their kitschy Jesus-junk and narrow theological angle of materials), this discovery, back 10 years ago, was significant. Somehow, I discovered there were actually interesting books there (if I combed well enough) and not just MxPx and Supertones CDs. I came across whole sections of books devoted to the study of the Bible. There were sections on relationships. And there were sections on finding application for scripture in the daily life. I never knew it! I unearthed this world of books written by authors who wanted to help people like me figure out how to “do faith” and deepen this process.

Luckily, accompanying my discovery, I ran in to a friend who worked at the store that I had gone to high school with. I told her about how I was looking for a book that would apply to the place I was in my life (back from school, growing in my faith, looking for “something deeper”). She pointed me to a book that in many ways changed my life. I look back now and laugh, but seriously, this book set me on a path of learning, growing, and knowing God in new, deep, more real ways than I had known.

The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God.
What a title! I was a little uncomfortable with reading a book with a title like that at first, and rightly so. But as I got in to it, the stories of faith took hold of me.

A short synopsis (from what I remember, as it’s been quite a while): Basically, God and people have been divided and we no longer hear the voice of the spirit as we once did. Through a process of listening, spending time in nature, exploring and healing deep wounds within us, we come back to God and are made whole again. It’s the gospel story. But Eldredge told it in such a way that it really struck me. There was something in that past year at school that had begun to awaken in me. Now I was reading about how I could pay more attention to that voice, those words from the heart of God, and develop a relationship there. It was pretty revolutionary for me.

From where I stand today, I strongly doubt that I’d click with or even like this book at all. I think it’s pretty simplistic and over emotional. It’s too conservative in it’s discussion of gender roles (as are Eldredge’s other books) for my taste. And simply, for where I am today, it wouldn’t fit. But for the person I was 10 years ago, seeking to deepen my knowledge of the divine and develop a closer relationship there, it was what I needed. I can recognize that it helped me develop a sense for understanding the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life, something I’m deeply interested in and still only basically aware of today. I think this book may have begun to give me a language and frame of reference for understanding God’s presence, a concept that is still being fleshed out and strengthened in me. For these things, I am deeply grateful.

The purpose of this post and hopefully the subsequent ones is to highlight the fact that what we read, what we listen to, what we absorb, shapes us. And with this, there are seasons where we need simpler, more straightforward answers or ideas to push us forward. Other times, we might need dense philosophies to challenge and overwhelm us. The thing we don’t need is complacency. The author of the Book of Hebrews writes about making the transition from milk to solid food as an infant grows to maturity (5:11-14). There is a time for easy things, things which enliven the heart and feed us. And then there is a time to grow and feed ourselves, developing our palette and tolerance for more difficult foods and concepts.

In many ways, The Sacred Romance was the milk or infant food I needed to get started. I hope to continue to tell this story in what came next, acknowledging that my maturing is still happening and there are seasons where I am able to feed and direct my own growth in relationship with Christ and there are also times when I still need help.

Question: Thinking back, has there been a book or two that sparked new growth in your faith early on in life or awakened a new season of development recently?

A weekend of Sabbath

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 22:18:00 -0700

I’ve spent the weekend engaging fully in the concept of Sabbath, as best I know how: reading, watching soccer, and listening to music. It’s been fruitful, provoking thoughts, providing rest, and bringing times of joy with friends. For someone who works in the church world, the week following Easter is a much-needed time of rest and renewal, following a very busy few weeks.

Selections (reading):
- Ireland: A Novel by Frank Delaney (finally finished)
- Curating Worship by Jonny Baker
- The End of Sexual Identify by Jenell Williams Paris (finally getting to this)
- The Crucifed Chrisr by Jürgen Moltmann

Listenings (music)
- M. Ward’s “A Wasteland Companion”
- The Lumineers’ debut album (fantastic)
- Plenty of KRME old-time radio and NPR classical music

Soccer
- Sounders FC 1-0 victory over the Colorado Rapids (sorry Sean)
- Bellingham United 1-1 draw against the Kitsap Pumas

All in all, a restful weekend. I’ve been trying my best to honor the Sabbath this year by making a concerted effort to take at least a full day off during the weekend and enjoy it by resting and spending time with friends and family. It’s not an easy task, especially when the demands of ministry work tend to occupy the weekend. But it’s important. I’ve found it to be a huge sustaining piece this year. I’m not always good at stopping, but when I do and can honor the fact that I need a break, I’m grateful. God is good in his sustaining presence and the gifts that come along with sabbath rest. Good music, good books, good time with those I love. I’ll take it.

Thursday night lights with @bhamunitedfc (Taken with instagram)

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 23:11:35 -0700

Thursday night lights with @bhamunitedfc (Taken with instagram)

Heading out. Sans shoes. #withoutshoes...

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 09:05:04 -0700

Heading out. Sans shoes. #withoutshoes www.onedaywithoutshoes.com (Taken with instagram)

A modern day Betty. (Taken with instagram)

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:55:46 -0700

A modern day Betty. (Taken with instagram)

Indeed. (Taken with instagram)

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:36:05 -0700

Indeed. (Taken with instagram)

Christ is risen from the dead. Come awake! (Taken with Instagram...

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 12:32:42 -0700

Christ is risen from the dead. Come awake! (Taken with Instagram at First Presbyterian Church of Bellingham)

Daily Cup: @Sightglass Rwanda Karenge. #coffee #Easter (Taken...

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 08:58:14 -0700

Daily Cup: @Sightglass Rwanda Karenge. #coffee #Easter (Taken with instagram)

Updated

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:55:41 -0700

I decided this morning to update my blog theme and get it a little more ready for some upcoming (hopefully) writing. Simplified. I’m using the same theme that I’ve had over at Going Liturgical (which is pretty much defunct and I’m considering absorbing that type of content here), so I thought I’d use it over here instead.

If I were to start writing more, here are few things I’d like to focus on. I’d love your thoughts, as always:

More coffee blogging
Grad school
Traveling (going to Ireland in July)
the INN

Another blog post about blog posts…I’m really good at these.

Here’s a prayer card with a few members of our team and...

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:45:51 -0700

Here’s a prayer card with a few members of our team and some things you can be praying for as we go in to this week of serving in Trenton, NJ. Thanks!

theinnministries:

Prayer Card for Team Trenton

Prayers for Team Trenton

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:43:59 -0700

Prayers for Team Trenton:

This week I’m heading out to co-lead my 6th mission trip as an INN staffer (my 8th INN mission trip overall)!

We’re heading to Trenton, NJ to serve with the Center for FaithJustice. Please keep us in your prayers and follow along with our INN missions blog at http://missions.theinnministries.org.

#Lent - from Bobby Gross’ “Living the Christian...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:46:20 -0800

#Lent - from Bobby Gross’ “Living the Christian Year” (Taken with instagram)

Such potential. #coffee (Taken with instagram)

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 09:17:27 -0800

Such potential. #coffee (Taken with instagram)

Morning #coffee setup at the office. (Taken with instagram)

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:33:48 -0800

Morning #coffee setup at the office. (Taken with instagram)