29
today I am 29. not sure what to feel about that one…..at least it's not 30:)
My Sunday Morning at Virtual LifeChurch.tv
Calling a Lifechurch.tv experience virtual seems a bit odd since even their in-person services are mostly virtual (they have multiple campuses/services in multiple states that broadcast the sermon – performed at lifechurch HQ in Oklahoma City – via satellite). But this past Sunday a few friends and I crashed the truly virtual LifeChurch.tv service in Second Life – an online, virtual world with 7.5 million inhabitants and a real economy. Kester in London and David here in Phoenix joined me for the experience. Here's a short pictorial account of our experience: (click on the images for a more detailed look)
With no sign of Kester in the lobby, David and I grab some coffee and step into the sanctuary. Looks almost identical to the three other Lifechurch.tv campuses I have seen. There's not a ton of people, but more than I expected. The worship is piped in live via Quicktime. People are raising their hands and shouting praises via the chat tools.
David and I make our way to the left-front of the room to get a better view. Most people are sitting (with the usual 4-seat buffer), some are standing with their hands raised. David (whose second life identity is a white haired hobbit? named Sonipa Jie) gets bored and shows me some karate moves he learned. Still no Kester.
We take our seats in the front row and look around. I am still holding on to my Lifechurch.tv coffee cup unsure of how to put it down. This is a good angle to catch a glimpse at the variety of worshippers here.
Not even through one song, David and I become tired of just sitting while watching singing heads. We rush the stage and stand around there for a few minutes. No one bothers us, no one even says anything to us. We've heard these SecondLifechurch.tv services often get disrupted by streakers. The threat we pose is insignificant when compared to nudity. So we hop off stage and after a few minutes, leave Second Life altogether.
An hour later:
I log back on to see if maybe Kester got the time wrong. I meet up with him behind the church building . He isn't wearing any clothes. He says he was at the service on time, but got kicked out because of his nudity. Being new to Second Life, he has no idea how to put on his clothes.
After a few minutes of talking about the experience, some others approach us and ask Kester to put on some clothes. He puts on a pair of underwear. Strangely enough, they are satisfied with this much clothing and leave us alone.
Kester has posted a much more insightful glimpse into our experience on his blog. Check it out.
The Dirt Confessional
At Symbol this weekend, we explored the concept of dirt and how we so easily label others as either clean or dirty and then erect boundaries between the dirty and the clean. It's clear that these boundaries existed in Jesus' day, but he always managed to erase the boundaries every chance he could. Our time together forced us each to recognize the dirt boundaries we allow to exist between us and those around us and to confess those boundaries. A cool thing we did was confessed via a great little free service called Wiffiti. Wiffiti allows you to create a screen that people can text to and the message get displayed live. It's a free service and it worked out great for us. Check out "The Dirt Confessional" here and add to it if you want.
link: Wiffiti Home Page
Fire @ The Simple Way
Shane Claiborne (author of The Irresistible Revolution") and members of the Simple Way Community had their community center destroyed in a large fire yesterday morning. Here's some of the text from their website:
This morning, a 7-alarm fire consumed an abandoned warehouse in our Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia. The Simple Way Community Center at 3200 Potter Street was destroyed as well as at least eight of our neighbors’ homes. Over 100 people were evacuated from their homes, and 400 families are currently without power. Despite this tragedy, we are incredibly thankful to share that all of our community members and every one of our neighbors is safely out of harm’s way.
This fire will forever change the fabric of our community. Eight families are currently homeless, and in many cases have lost their vehicles as well as their homes. One of our neighbors, the Mahaias Family, lost their three cars as well as the equipment one family member uses for her massage therapy business. Teenager Brian Mahaias is devastated not because he has lost his belongings, but because he fears that this fire will force him to move away from this neighborhood that is his family as well as his home.
The Simple Way has lost a community center that was home to our Yes! And… afterschool program, community arts center, and Cottage Printworks t-shirt micro-business as well as to two of our community members. Community members Shane Claiborne and Jesce Walz have lost all of their belongings, Yes!And…’s after school studio and library were ruined, and community member Justin Donner’s Cottage Printworks equipment and t-shirts were destroyed.
Funds have already been established to support the families who have lost their homes, the Yes! And… afterschool program, and the Simple Way community.These funds have been established through a partner organization, EAPE. Tax-deductible donations can be made at https://www.tonycampolo.org/online_donation.php. Please make sure to put “TSW-Kensington Families Fund” or “TSW-Rebuilding Fund” in the memo section.
The Simple Way community plays a significant role in Philadelphia in exposing the city to the counter-cultural ways of the Kingdom of God. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers as we all contemplate what it must be like to lose everything in a few moments.
How did I miss this?
A months back I read about some controversy surrounding Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church. Nothing surprising there, the dude gets himself in trouble constantly around the blogosphere. The controversy I read about this time was a video that he made about church planting that he (and the guys from the ACTS 29 network) made in lieu of him personally speaking at this year's National New Church Conference. I watched the beginning of the video, but due to it's 8 minute length I decided to read more about the controversy rather than watch the whole controversial video for myself. From my reading, the response on the blogosphere seemed minor when compared to some of Driscoll's other foot-in-mouth episodes of recent. So I didn't pay much attention to it.
That was until today when I read this post from Pete Rollins. Pete tells it like it is and shares his European perspective on Driscoll. For a while I have wondered why we continue to put up with Driscoll's antics, why we continue to give him a voice in the American emerging church. Rollins seems to wonder the same thing. In any case, today I watched the entire 8 minute clip and I am amazed this didn't get more outlash from bloggers. Maybe it did and I missed it. I followed the story mainly via Andrew Jones, who consistently tends to apply more grace to situations like these than I do. If you haven't watched this video clip, you have to check it out (make sure to watch it all).
Here's some of things I am still in disbelief that Driscoll seems to insinuate:
– Only men can be effective church planters. (this is not so surprising from Driscoll's mouth)
– women play no significant role in the church
– Church planting is comparable to war (you can take that one pretty far)
– the world sees Jesus as a gay hippy in a dress?
– all 20yr-30yr old men are "banging their girlfriends", spending all their money, staying up all night playing World of Warcraft, looking for free porn on the internet, and trying to figure out how to get a bigger subwoofer for their "retarded" car
– the church needs men to teach the men how to make money, buy a house, and have sex with their wives at least once a day (daily sex quota is a big priority of Jesus no doubt)
Is he trying to piss people off? Please someone explain this to me.
Here's the video: link
dirt:exploring the boundaries that separate us
We're exploring concepts of dirt this weekend at Symbol. We all have our own ideas of what/who is "dirty" and what/who is "clean" and we begin to create boundaries that separate that which is clean (we like to think we fit in the category)from that which is clean. The interesting thing is that while these boundaries were common in Jesus time, he seems to cross these boundaries consistently. He touched the untouchable, he spoke with the unspeakable, he broke cultural taboos, and challenged dirt boundaries at every turn.
This is not an easy subject and Saturday will include both a time to become aware of these boundaries we've created and a time of confession. And as usual….there will be some time to wrestle and process with it all collectively in dialogue.
If this interests you, you are welcome to join in. You'll find the details on the Symbol Communities site. If you decide to "get dirty" with us, we'll see you there.
The Secret Message of Jesus
I acknowledge that the blogging here has been pathetic lately. I have been busy and conflicted with the realities of both dreaming and exploring various Kingdom projects and paying the bills – two things which are two very different aspects of life at the moment.
Anyway, to alleviate my guilt, I will continue to post small nuggets of wisdom that have been affecting me from books I am reading. These are far short from reviews, but if you're anything like me, the simplicity of a few brilliant words alone in a post (or alone on a page) can be as affecting as the entire work itself. I will try to post such brilliance I run across.
I recently started "The Secret Message of Jesus" by Brian MacLaren, a book that has sat on my shelf since it's release last year. I finally am finding time to pour through it. Here's a bit I want to share here from Chapter 6: The Medium of the Message.
Human kingdoms advance by force and violence with falling bombs and flying bullets, but God's kingdom advances by stories, fictions, tales that are easily ignored and easily misunderstood. Perhaps that's the only way it can be.
Reading these words, I am reminded of Kester's call to "evolutionary" change as opposed to "revolutionary" change in the church from Signs of Emergence. And I am rebuked as I think of how often I get frustrated as those around me don't seem to get the idea(s) of the Kingdom. For indeed it is radically different.
AA and the evangelical discipleship meeting
I spent this morning in a coffee shop that isn't my usual coffee shop. For some reason, in this coffee shop I seem to always overhear some sort of "discipleship" conversation. I will admit, I feel it the moment I walk through the doors: a small group huddled around a table, bibles poised to lookup a common passage screams evangelical Christianity. I know it well.
Today's group seem to be some sort of leadership team from a local church – probably the youth ministry leadership. Again, something I know well. T thing thst struck me during my eavesdropping, was how much the conversation resembled an AA meeting. One by one they went around sharing their recent failures and asking one another to pray for these weaknesses. Little focus is put on the successes and the joys of following Jesus. I have been to enough AA meetings with to see a similarity.
Living Symbolic
"By their example of a truly Christian understanding of the world, expressed in a living and active application of the Christian faith to the human problems of our own time, Christians manifest the love of Christ for men, and by that fact make him visibly present in the world."
Thomas Merton in "Passion for Peace"
A quote from “The Gift” by Lewis Hyde
In his chapter on usury – the adding of interest to a gift (as in a loan), Hyde writes this,
"…the spirit of the gift demands that no one make a living off another man's need."
