Your Mission is to Love

By David | Published: March 17, 2010

“One tries to follow Jesus by squeezing through the eye of the needle . . . and then stumbling outside the gates. Spending time there. Finding people we’d normally be asked to have mercy on—and instead asking them to have mercy on us and teach us.”

Are you an especially compassionate person? Do you get tickled inside by the fun feeling that creeps up every time you get to help someone else? Do you constantly harken back to those moments when you were especially awesome? It feels so incredibly good, right?

I’m right there with you. I’ve got this one moment I’ve kept inside me for close to ten years. All this time it has been my exclusive property. Anytime I feel like I’ve been an asshole (every day?) I use it to remind myself of how non-assholey I can be . . . once a decade. I makes me so better than everyone else.

Kent Annan’s honesty about his experiences in Haiti kicks me in the stomach. He makes me wretch over my smug satisfaction and superiority.

I can’t believe his book exists. Christians aren’t supposed to be this honest about their experiences. But since it exists everyone needs to read this book. I’ve got a copy to pass around.

(By the way, I’m going to stop linking to my Amazon Associate account. I feel sick every time I post a link to it. The pennies aren’t worth my selling out.)

Posted in Jesus, Kingdom, Missional, Reading, Spirituality | 2 Comments

#tag10

By David | Published: March 11, 2010

I was really hoping to make it to Claremont this week. But it was not to be.

Theology After Google is a whole lot of awesome. There are some incredible folks gathered together to discuss today’s theological currents. Check the schedule and follow the conversation on Twitter or on live streaming video.

Posted in Christianity, Church, Community, Conversation | Leave a comment

The Nicene Creed

By David | Published: March 11, 2010

I’ve been focusing on the Nicene Creed today. Especially this portion.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally
begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us
and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.

This is pulled directly from the IVP Ancient Christian Doctrine series. I love the way they did the line breaks. I imagine a colon after “eternally” which is then followed by a bullet list of things that have “eternal” import.

eternally begotten of the Father
eternally God from God, Light from Light
eternally true God from true God
eternally begotten, not made
eternally of one Being with the Father

I don’t know if that is how it is meant to be read, but it really resonates well with me, poetically.

I find the way that the creed approaches sin and separation (the fall) to be really interesting. I mean, it doesn’t mention an individual moment of falling at all. Whatever state we are in now flows directly from a concept of God’s creation of all things seen and unseen. There is no jarring disruption of a perfect ordering. To be sure, there is the idea of salvation and its necessity, as well as its enacting through the life and death of Jesus.

Surely salvation is necessary. You have to be delusional to believe that God is happy with the way certain things proceed here on earth. Not to overly simplify things, but truly, God’s rescue mission is the theme of the Bible; saving his people from slavery; calling them back from Babylon; a desire to create our own Kingdoms in the place of God’s. But those failings are not because of a single, sudden precipitous fall from grace. They are our human condition, the path we each take through choices in life. We love in the midst of sin – each of us, no matter our religion. We follow God even while we wander. We learn from hurting and pain. We fall (over and over, not once for all) and then our rising (again and again) is all the more wonderful each time.

One other part of the creed that I really love:

For us
and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary
and was made man.

I love the separation and emphasis of both the “For us” and the “for our salvation”

A very important reminder. God’s focus is his people and all of his creation, not just His salvation plan. We don’t exist merely to give credence to God’s plan, as some Christians like to claim. We were made by a creator who desires to be deeply involved in his creation. A plan becomes totalitarianism without love.

And God is not just maintaining us here through his plan. The Kingdom is coming in fullness. God doesn’t ask us to be satisfied with the status quo, but calls us to partner toward a greater day. Stories of goodness are still on the horizon.

Posted in Christianity, Jesus, Kingdom, Reading, Religion, Spirituality, Thoughts | Leave a comment

Destruction

By David | Published: March 1, 2010

Many people have spent much energy in trying to stop Brantford from following the failed attempts of many other cities to revitalize their downtowns by tearing them down. A stretch of four blocks of buildings that are between 100 and 150 years old are scheduled to be erased in the next few weeks. Four blocks that up until a few weeks ago were the homes of quite a few thriving businesses.

30-plus years of neglect and mismanagement lead to a deteriorating streetscape and downtown morale. Unfortunately there are quite a few people in our city who can’t see past cosmetics to the beautiful history that is in desperate need of preserving. Our downtown needs love, not divorce.

1600 plus have joined the Save the South Side of Colborne Facebook group.

Newpaper articles decrying city council’s mismanagement and idiocy have been published in municipalities all over Southern Ontario. For some reason those within are own city limits are the last to recognize the value in these sturdy and stunning heritage structures. There generations of stories that are about to be hastily torn down and carted off to a landfill with no solid plan for what will replace them.

I personally can’t believe that we are still seeing these kinds of city planning decisions being made after the horror of suburbanization and desertification of our downtown centers. I look whistfully at every bordering municipality and their strong efforts to preserve, restore and continue the stories of their heritage.

We are hoping there is still time to save something. Please visit the Facebook group and view the incredible photography, articles, stories, and emotions that this monumental mistake is about to obliterate. If nothing else, we want to tell these stories and create memories that will endure so that we don’t make these mistakes in the future.

Update: A Tumblr page collecting quotes, images and articles.

Posted in Community, local | 3 Comments

Still Defining Missional

By David | Published: March 1, 2010

Obligitory link to the Missional Syncroblog from a few years ago.

The term missional suffers from continued confusion. Lately I think to too many Missional means "I’m not Emergent but I am still progressive!" And it is still easily captured by those who see nothing of value in institutional christianity. "Missional means getting away from crusty church buildings and doing something ‘organicky.’

But another problem is arising for me right now. I want the church community that I have a small responsibility in directing to define what it means to be missional on the street corner where our tiny church is located. Right now the "Missional Living" page on the church website is blank because I don’t think I nor any other expert can tell us definitively what we need to place there.

But how do I put something into motion without it being MY vision that will hinder the imaginations of the many very different people that we see every week?

  • God is active and engaged in this world.
  • Follow His lead.
  • Listen to His instruction.
  • Go and participate in His work.
  • Get out of this building, but come back next week to report and encourage!

Ok. I’ve got something to put there now.
Should I add anything else?

Posted in Church, Community, Missional, Thoughts | 1 Comment

  • Friends and Inspirers