I just read Derek's second blog post about his lunch with a homeless guy named Ed, and he ended it with the idea for people at Harmony to pair up with homeless people and treat them to lunch once a week like Derek will be doing with Ed. I am so excited that God led Derek's path to cross with Ed because this is exactly the type of thing that I want to see Harmony doing: bringing the Kingdom of God to earth by reaching out and loving those that our society marginalizes.
And by the way, if anyone wants a really good book to read over the summer that goes along these lines, go get Shane Claiborne's "Irresistible Revolution: living as an ordinary radical."
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
thoughts on "Irresistible Revolution"
This book is amazing, but summarizing the whole thing would take too long, so I'm just going to highlight the things that God has made stand out to me especially, the things that I feel He's calling me to change...
The biggest thing that has caused the most dramatic change in the way I think is summed up in this quote: "I began to understand what it meant when the curtain of the temple was torn open as Jesus died on the cross. Not only was God redeeming that which was profane, but God was setting all that was sacred free." (emphasis mine) Shane goes on to explain what this implies: "I knew that I had not just looked into the eyes of some pitiful leper in Calcutta but that I had gazed in to the eyes of Jesus, and that he had not seen just some rich, do-gooder white kid from American but that he had seen the image of God in me. That is nuts. What would the world look like if we truly believed, as the apostle Paul figured out, that we no longer live, but only Jesus lives in us?" Back on campus after break, I tried to see Jesus in everyone I interacted with or made eye contact with, and not just those people who I knew to be Christ-followers, but everyone. And it breathed a whole new meaning into "whatever you did to the least of these, my brothers, you did unto me." I have to admit, it's not a conscious thought now all the time anymore, but it still affects the way that I interact with people - I treat them with more value, for sure.
The second thing that I've come to realize through this book is that I need to be doing something about poverty in the world...and my community, Greenville, is the very best place for me to start. I've read Shane's debunking of the excuse "the poor will always be among you" and run across so many examples of how we as Christ-followers are supposed to treat the poor. Like I already said, "whatever you did..." means so much more to me now. And I think the most arresting quote that I have read about poverty so far is, "Ask the poor. They will tell you who the Christians are." ~Gandhi ....Ouch. What am I doing to end poverty in my community, to bring the Kingdom of God "on earth, as it is in heaven"?
And ending poverty isn't the only aspect of bringing the Kingdom of God to earth - which is the mission that we join with God in accomplishing when we start to follow the Way of Christ...war is another biggie. I had never given serious thought to that issue until I read the chapter Shane titles "Pledging Allegiance When Kingdoms Collide". He points out how much patriotism and the American flag area part of the church, and questions if that is a good thing. After reading what he has to say about it, I think it's not a good thing. Patriotism has already been getting on my nerves for some time now, ever since I heard Derek Webb's song "A King and a Kingdom", the chorus of which goes My first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man/my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood/it's to a King and a Kingdom. My question became why should I take pride in and pledge allegiance to a nation-state that God can bring down a whole lot faster than He raised it up, when my true allegiance should lie with a Kingdom that will never fade away, a Kingdom ruled by a perfect Savior-King? Shane's bigger point about how tragic it is that the American church puts so much emphasis on being American is that it blinds us to our bigger family around the world and pits us as enemies to our nation's enemies. And this is so tragic because we have been reborn into a new system where we should love our enemies and seek peace with every man through Christ, and that's almost opposite of the way the American church lives and operates.
Shane goes on to question redemptive violence, something which I am still questioning, but I haven't quite been able to reconcile a completely pacifist stance with the God who annihilated so many thousands of people through war in the Old Testament...but I do know that I agree with this statement of Shane's: "I have pledged allegiance to a King who loved evildoers so much he died for them, teaching us that there is something worth dying for but nothing worth killing for." And here is a quote by an Iraqi woman about the war in Iraq that should really cause us to rethink our traditional, conservative, Western Christian take on the "War on Terror": "Your country is declaring war in the name of God and asking God's blessing, and that is the same thing my country is doing. What kind of God is this? What has happened to the God of love, to the Prince of Peace?"
The biggest thing that has caused the most dramatic change in the way I think is summed up in this quote: "I began to understand what it meant when the curtain of the temple was torn open as Jesus died on the cross. Not only was God redeeming that which was profane, but God was setting all that was sacred free." (emphasis mine) Shane goes on to explain what this implies: "I knew that I had not just looked into the eyes of some pitiful leper in Calcutta but that I had gazed in to the eyes of Jesus, and that he had not seen just some rich, do-gooder white kid from American but that he had seen the image of God in me. That is nuts. What would the world look like if we truly believed, as the apostle Paul figured out, that we no longer live, but only Jesus lives in us?" Back on campus after break, I tried to see Jesus in everyone I interacted with or made eye contact with, and not just those people who I knew to be Christ-followers, but everyone. And it breathed a whole new meaning into "whatever you did to the least of these, my brothers, you did unto me." I have to admit, it's not a conscious thought now all the time anymore, but it still affects the way that I interact with people - I treat them with more value, for sure.
The second thing that I've come to realize through this book is that I need to be doing something about poverty in the world...and my community, Greenville, is the very best place for me to start. I've read Shane's debunking of the excuse "the poor will always be among you" and run across so many examples of how we as Christ-followers are supposed to treat the poor. Like I already said, "whatever you did..." means so much more to me now. And I think the most arresting quote that I have read about poverty so far is, "Ask the poor. They will tell you who the Christians are." ~Gandhi ....Ouch. What am I doing to end poverty in my community, to bring the Kingdom of God "on earth, as it is in heaven"?
And ending poverty isn't the only aspect of bringing the Kingdom of God to earth - which is the mission that we join with God in accomplishing when we start to follow the Way of Christ...war is another biggie. I had never given serious thought to that issue until I read the chapter Shane titles "Pledging Allegiance When Kingdoms Collide". He points out how much patriotism and the American flag area part of the church, and questions if that is a good thing. After reading what he has to say about it, I think it's not a good thing. Patriotism has already been getting on my nerves for some time now, ever since I heard Derek Webb's song "A King and a Kingdom", the chorus of which goes My first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man/my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood/it's to a King and a Kingdom. My question became why should I take pride in and pledge allegiance to a nation-state that God can bring down a whole lot faster than He raised it up, when my true allegiance should lie with a Kingdom that will never fade away, a Kingdom ruled by a perfect Savior-King? Shane's bigger point about how tragic it is that the American church puts so much emphasis on being American is that it blinds us to our bigger family around the world and pits us as enemies to our nation's enemies. And this is so tragic because we have been reborn into a new system where we should love our enemies and seek peace with every man through Christ, and that's almost opposite of the way the American church lives and operates.
Shane goes on to question redemptive violence, something which I am still questioning, but I haven't quite been able to reconcile a completely pacifist stance with the God who annihilated so many thousands of people through war in the Old Testament...but I do know that I agree with this statement of Shane's: "I have pledged allegiance to a King who loved evildoers so much he died for them, teaching us that there is something worth dying for but nothing worth killing for." And here is a quote by an Iraqi woman about the war in Iraq that should really cause us to rethink our traditional, conservative, Western Christian take on the "War on Terror": "Your country is declaring war in the name of God and asking God's blessing, and that is the same thing my country is doing. What kind of God is this? What has happened to the God of love, to the Prince of Peace?"
the story of how God led me to Harmony
so I've been reading Shane Claiborne's book "Irresistible Revolution: living as an ordinary radical" since Christmas break...started it on break, and then haven't really picked it up again until now, but I can see how that timing was/is divine. Back during Christmas break, I had already decided that I was dissatisfied with the campus ministry that I had been going to during first semester, and knew that I was going to be looking for a new place to fit when I went back to campus - either a campus ministry, a church or both. And then I started reading "Irresistible Revolution", and it prompted a revelation of sorts that clearly defined what I was looking for in a prospective campus ministry/church: a group of people whose sole focus was loving God and people, and doing what Jesus taught.
So I went back to campus knowing what I was looking for, but didn't find it right away. I visited one campus ministry that I got all excited about at first - which is my way - but when I stepped back to consider it from all angles, I realized that it would really be a problem that I sat during the speaker's message disagreeing with just about every other word. :) I visited two other campus ministries after that, but they were both the same as the one I attended first semester and the one I visited: same format - what the Western church likes to call "worship" which is a tragically narrow definition of a word that is supposed to express the whole of a Christ-follower's life; a pretty mediocre message that I often found inapplicable because I had heard the same simple teaching so many times before; and announcements for Bible studies and fellowship gatherings for group members...same people - in a word, pretty cliquey...same activities - weekly meetings, Bible studies, and scheduled hang-out times for people who already knew each other...all-in-all, ministries very much focused on meeting the needs of people already involved in the ministry, and evangelism that centered on sharing your testimony to bring people in so that they could conform to the standards of Western Christianity - something that I'm starting to think bears little resemblance to the life Jesus lived. In short, after attending one campus ministry and visiting three more that were very well-meaning but didn't resemble Jesus very well at all, I was beginning to get frustrated.
Enter a sign on a....TRASH CAN....(think about that one for a minute) outside the Student Rec Center, reading "Harmony Church: no judgment, no hypocrisy, church as Jesus intended it, Dr. Unk's Oasis"....and I think Well now! I think I might go just to see if they can back up these claims...especially since it's in a bar...should be interesting. But I was also thinking that if Harmony could back up the claims with actions, God had just shown me the place I was supposed to be.
But that divine appointment with a trash can wasn't enough for God...no, He took me on a joy-ride on the Minges bus to find a place that wasn't where I thought it was, just so He could put a postcard that Miranda had left in the little bus stop shelter in my hands. The postcard had more info on Harmony, like where Dr. Unk's was (because I had forgotten the intersection by this point) and just more stuff that completely made up my mind that I was going. This was the end of January, right before Harmony's first Sunday morning meeting at Dr. Unk's. So I went, found nearly exactly what I was looking for, and it's been awesome ever since. I've grown so much from the conversations that we have had about theology, and I have found brothers and sisters in Christ that are very special to me. Truth be told, for the first time in my life, I have wanted to NOT be at home...and that is on Sunday mornings when I'm wishing I could be at Harmony with my family there.
So that's the story... :)
So I went back to campus knowing what I was looking for, but didn't find it right away. I visited one campus ministry that I got all excited about at first - which is my way - but when I stepped back to consider it from all angles, I realized that it would really be a problem that I sat during the speaker's message disagreeing with just about every other word. :) I visited two other campus ministries after that, but they were both the same as the one I attended first semester and the one I visited: same format - what the Western church likes to call "worship" which is a tragically narrow definition of a word that is supposed to express the whole of a Christ-follower's life; a pretty mediocre message that I often found inapplicable because I had heard the same simple teaching so many times before; and announcements for Bible studies and fellowship gatherings for group members...same people - in a word, pretty cliquey...same activities - weekly meetings, Bible studies, and scheduled hang-out times for people who already knew each other...all-in-all, ministries very much focused on meeting the needs of people already involved in the ministry, and evangelism that centered on sharing your testimony to bring people in so that they could conform to the standards of Western Christianity - something that I'm starting to think bears little resemblance to the life Jesus lived. In short, after attending one campus ministry and visiting three more that were very well-meaning but didn't resemble Jesus very well at all, I was beginning to get frustrated.
Enter a sign on a....TRASH CAN....(think about that one for a minute) outside the Student Rec Center, reading "Harmony Church: no judgment, no hypocrisy, church as Jesus intended it, Dr. Unk's Oasis"....and I think Well now! I think I might go just to see if they can back up these claims...especially since it's in a bar...should be interesting. But I was also thinking that if Harmony could back up the claims with actions, God had just shown me the place I was supposed to be.
But that divine appointment with a trash can wasn't enough for God...no, He took me on a joy-ride on the Minges bus to find a place that wasn't where I thought it was, just so He could put a postcard that Miranda had left in the little bus stop shelter in my hands. The postcard had more info on Harmony, like where Dr. Unk's was (because I had forgotten the intersection by this point) and just more stuff that completely made up my mind that I was going. This was the end of January, right before Harmony's first Sunday morning meeting at Dr. Unk's. So I went, found nearly exactly what I was looking for, and it's been awesome ever since. I've grown so much from the conversations that we have had about theology, and I have found brothers and sisters in Christ that are very special to me. Truth be told, for the first time in my life, I have wanted to NOT be at home...and that is on Sunday mornings when I'm wishing I could be at Harmony with my family there.
So that's the story... :)
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
"...THIS is American Idol"
okay, so I've never really followed a TV show faithfully until the last few weeks of American Idol, and I have never voted, not even remotely considered it, until this week. But Simon couldn't have put it better when he said to David Archuleta, "You didn't just beat the competition...you crushed the competition." Not only did he sing two songs that I know and love - "Stand By Me" and "Love Me Tender" - he completely nailed them. Aah! They were awesome/beautiful! And I can't forget to mention the fact that he is just...cute! I'm not talking screaming-teeny-bopper-girls "oh-he's-so-cuuuuuute!-I-wanna-go-out-with-him!"...no, no, I'm talking about the "you-sure-I-can't-claim-you-as-my-little-brother" kind of cute. He's humble and unassuming, always nervous about what the judges'll say and so thankful when they say good things...which has been basically every week since the beginning, as I look back and do some research. So anyway, I probably called and got through 20-25 times...just wanna make sure this boy WINS!! :)
a start
I thought it would be a good discipline for me to blog over the summer about the books (including the Bible) I'm reading and the things I'm learning and reflecting on because of them. I'm not particularly motivated to journal normally, since hand-writing things takes forever and you can't easily edit them, but knowing that other people can see this site will motivate me, I think, to post relatively often, and to be more articulate about my thoughts, for sure. Another reason for blogging is, hopefully, sharing my thoughts with other people and dialogging about them, so long as people visit the site and comment!
I pray that this will be a good discipline for me and glorifying to my Father in Heaven.
I pray that this will be a good discipline for me and glorifying to my Father in Heaven.
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