so i say to myself

Oct 21
2011

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

plays: 0

country music has produced a panoply of songs that could have been written either about an incredible relationship with a boyfriend or an incredible relationship with jesus.

luckily, blake has stepped in with one that switches the question to girlfriend or holy spirit?

cheers to the bible belt.

Oct 13
2011

if i get to five

sometimes the best ministry books aren’t really about ministry at all.

from neurosurgeon fred epstein’s if i get to five:

“we’ve learned that keeping ourselves open to the emotional as well as physical pain around us doesn’t come naturally; retreating from other people’s pain does. compassion isn’t a passive state. it’s an act of will, an act of courage; the courage to cope with every parent’s worst nightmare, the courage to be emotionally honest, the courage to risk having your heart broken, the courage to care enough to push yourself to do what’s scariest.

i used to think that courage meant taking on the toughest cases, being the guy who dared to make the life-and-death judgment calls in the operating room. i now know that holding a child’s hand while he undergoes chemotherapy can be a lot scarier than holding his life in my hands during an operation.”

Sep 26
2011

royally wasteful

my current hero, lauren winner, at a conference for christian artists a few years back::

“we live in a secular world governed by a capitalist model of scarcity. there’s never enough money in our world and there’s never enough time. all of our resources are scarce.

by contrast, our god gives us a very different economy. our god is a god of overflowing creative fecundity, a god of inexhaustible eucharistic offering. a god who, after all, multiplies loaves and fishes.

so to borrow marvus don’s phrase, one of the things that marks us as followers of that god is the consistent practice of being royally wasteful. of wasting time by praying and worshipping … christians need not, because of our god of abundance, always be concerned about the evident utility of everything we do. we are instead called to worship and reverence a god who is interested in whimsy and not just utility.”

she’s brilliant.

Sep 15
2011

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

plays: 0

there’s not much that’s more embarrassing than loving a song by an artist named “pitbull”. but i do. i love this right now.

Aug 31
2011

to hand a man seeds for his swelling, panging starvation, and ask him to believe in a feast — is this what everyday faith is?

— ann vonskamp

Aug 12
2011

I began spending the bulk of my “relational ministry” helping youth develop a vocabulary of faith. I learned that pastors have permission, and even an obligation, to ask questions that others do not ask…Together we tried to notice and critique the theology present in the hallways at school, in the kitchen at home, and in the nagging omnipresent question of both adolescents and Jesus Christ: “Who do you say that I am?

—

Kenda Creasy Dean

The Godbearing Life

Jul 14
2011

the stories i tell myself

as i have begun to study and think about spiritual practices i am less and less satisfied with the often-used analogy of practicing piano scales in preparation to play beethoven someday. instead, i find myself drawn to the idea that spiritual practices are really just the stories that we repeat to ourselves. i am convinced that the practices i embody - the stories i tell myself - have real impact right now, not just in some possible performance to come. as i practice, i am embodying the truth i know. i am reminding myself with the greatest force i have, my very body, to remember what is true.

there are stories i tell myself without meaning too. when i choose to eat a double-double with fries (or more realistically, when i continually choose diet coke over water) i am quietly telling myself that the story of a God who has promised to someday resurrect this body of mine isn’t fully true. i am suggesting to myself that the physicality of this body doesn’t really matter.

with each episode of the bachelorette i watch or norah roberts book i read i am whispering to myself that i have been promised - that i deserve - a husband. i am rehearsing the story that surely my prince charming is on his way to rescue me from the doldrums of singleness and surely (surely!) we will live happily ever after.

these are not the best stories to be telling myself.

there are, though, stories of truth that i am actively choosing to tell myself. i sit in a large room each sunday morning surrounded by people like me and unlike me. there are newly married couples, empty-nested parents and people i honestly don’t like to be around. we gather to pray and rest. we sing and grieve and listen. and in that hour i remind myself of the grand story of the worship that is to come. of the indescribable, infinite time that i will spend gathered around the throne with the faithful of all time, worshipping the one true god.

as i order my day around a set schedule of prayers i tell myself the story of the God that ordered the universe and holds time in his hand. i remind myself that the agenda of the kingdom is far greater than my personal plans for the day.

i clip on my chaplains badge and walk into a children’s emergency room to remind myself of a God that took on human flesh and entered into this mess of human grief and suffering. i spend my friday afternoons practicing to myself the story of the incarnation.

and so i am beginning to come to grips with the idea that the way i live this life has significant implications for today and for eternity. i am beginning to force myself to look past the surface of my sleep schedule or my finances to discern what stories i am telling myself - to question the truth of the narratives i am rehearsing. it has become my hope that as i begin to root out the lies i whisper to myself that the story my life tells will be a tale that is daily more full of truth and more often overflowing with grace.

Jul 11
2011

i have a deep appreciation for youth specialities’ decades-long desire to equip and empower youth leaders.

as a 20-something female, though, i don’t know how to respond to the ad that arrived in my mailbox today. i’m not quite sure how to move past the implicit communication that “middle age white men make the decisions for the leadership of american youth ministry.”

i know i belong at the grown-up table at thanksgiving, but am i really invited to what is advertised as the boys table of youth ministry?

Jun 22
2011

o Love that will not let me go,
i rest my weary soul in Thee;
i give Thee back the life i owe,
that in Thine ocean depths its flow,
may richer, fuller be,
may richer, fuller be.

o joy that seekest me through pain,
i cannot close my heart to Thee,
i trace the rainbow through the rain,
and feel the promise is not in vain
that morn shall tearless be,
that morn shall tearless be.

—

rev. george matheson

vespers office, june 21, the divine hours

Jun 17
2011

surely it will take months to process how these last two weeks have changed me, but for now it is enough to say that this beloved group lavished on me grace and joy and love. and deep, deep freedom.

team bricolage, june 2011.

Jun 14
2011

sometimes the crucifixion of our will comes through other people whom we bear, or whom we must serve, or whom we must obey.

sometimes the crucifixion of our will comes through sickness and disease, past our ability to do anything about it.

sometimes circumstance serve to crucify our will as they crush the dreams, plans, and ambitions that we hold so closely, like idols which resist the touch of the Living God.

that suffering, dying, and the daily crucifixion of our will can lead to the deepest level of divine life is a mystery we scarcely fathom. but here we see it in Jesus, enveloped by torment and opposition, going willingly to death for the redemption of all creation.

—

meditations on the stations of the cross

belmont abbey college

Jun 13
2011

we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Advocate,
promised by Jesus,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

at the creation of the world, she hovered over the waters,
breathing order into chaos.
She called the patriarchs and matriarchs in dreams and in fire,
and revealed God’s purposes through the Prophets.

the Spirit overshadowed mary of nazareth,
filling her with a new song and new life.
She came upon Jesus at his baptism
as he was named the Father’s beloved.

She came down out of heaven on the day of pentecost,
manifest in tongues of flame and of speech.
She preached and healed through the apostles,
inspired the holy scriptures,
sustains the church,
and knits the community of believers together into one body.

She dwells in and with God’s people,
midwife to our rebirth as heavenly children.
one day she will welcome us home to the city of God,
and wipe away every tear from our eyes.

—

anastasia mcateer

sparkhouse, 2010

Jun 12
2011

remember when i lived in dallas?

me either…

Jun 11
2011

pastor and theologian?

i have left, this week, my beloved community of gritty, grounded ministry and have been given the privilege to listen to the voices shaping the larger conversation of the Church. it has been an indescribably rich week, but has left me wondering if it is possible to both speak into the cloud of higher conversation and have feet firmly planted in a local community.

i am confident that excellent ministry must informed by excellent theology — the onus of responsibility is on the pastor to be sure the practice he preaches is based in fully formed doctrine, but must the reverse be true? is a theologian only as good as the concrete praxis that comes out of his theoretical positing?

is there a point at which those involved in the formation of current theological theory become so disparate from those involved in the formation of local church praxis that the two become irreconcilable?

we have local shepherds with excellent practicality but whose voices are neither offered nor sought at a national/international level. and we have brilliant minds pushing forward conversations that must be had but are seemingly divorced from a consistent local congregation that would keep them relevant to the implementation of their ideas.

where are the small town pastors at mega-conferences? why always the audience and never the platform? who is shepherding the “speakers’” congregations as they bounce from conference to book contract to podcast? are the guiding voices the most authentic or just the most ambitious?

ultimately my questions are based in obvious selfishness. i ask if one voice can be both macro and micro and do either one with any semblance of excellence because i want to be that voice. i’m asking if there enough room in my particular life to deeply love both my micro-community and the macro-conversation? can i actually be both fully pastor and theologian or will i eventually have to choose?

is the tension so great that it is uninhabitable or just great enough to pull me to a life lived on my knees?

May 29
2011

low expectations are more a sign of my heart condition than of God’s character. it says i think He only gives good gifts to others. it says i’m not really sure if He can come through on this one. it says that i already know how this is going to turn out, so i should just not get my hopes up. it says that i question His grace, His sovereignty, His will.

the thing is, we don’t serve a measured, manageable God…we serve an expectations-defying God. He parts seas, raises the dead, heals the sick, welcomes home the prodigal, and puts the lonely in families. He saves sinners and adopts them as His sons and daughters. and so perhaps i shouldn’t be surprised when He obliterates my stoicism with the reality of His love.

yes, i’m still waiting but i’m no longer afraid to believe that His love for me is awe-inducing and heart-transforming. not afraid to trust that the God who made me also has my future under control. not afraid to believe that His character is utterly dependable. not afraid to ask boldly of a heavenly Father who knows all, directs all, and completes all.

— fast.pray.