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So I’m at Chicago airport, close to boarding my flight home. I had a great time in Grand Rapids, inputting on the Emerging Church track.
Made some new friends, consolidated some of my research and ideas, and will be turning 40 on the flight on the way home.
Now do I celebrate at midnight GMT, or at midnight in the time zone I am in? Or perhaps I celebrate the whole way home, at midnight in every time zone from GMT backwards
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I’m just preparing for todays symposium, and taking a look at the questions I’ve been asked to respond to, along with Kevin Corcoran and Pete Rollins.
1. What personal encounters with the emerging church have been most meaningful to you and most shape your reflections?
2. What are the key questions you are asking about the emerging church?
3. In exploring and answering the questions you’ve posed, what are the key insights, resources, and practices for us to attend to?
4. Questions from the audience
5. What are the greatest opportunities, and the greatest dangers, in worship renewal as embodied in the emergent church?We’ll be using the responses to these questions, along with a panel of responders who will ask further questions, for the morning and afternoon.
So in advance here are some of my thoughts in response to these questions…(please excuse typos, I’m writing this and running to the seminar)
Continue reading »
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OK, photo of Kevin Corcoran and Pete Rollins, whom I’m spending the day locked in a room with, as we go through each others draft chapters.
Surely this needs a caption competition, I’ll start it off.
‘Kevin was thrilled to lead Pete to Jesus with the sinners prayer’
Over to you….
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(Photo from project by Mladen Penev.)One of my best friends, has bought me a limited edition NIV bible for my 40th birthday. It’s the biggest, most luxurious bible I now have, that is so large I need two hands to hold it.
And as it has sat on my desk, imposing, and seemingly alive, breathing under it’s soft leather cover, it got me to thinking about the power of books and stories.
Books have always been a special part of my life. I remember how libraries have always seemed to be magical places, and my first library pass like a magic key.
I would spend hours browsing the stacks, taking books from all sections, and all subjects (from the adults library even though I was supposed to be using the kids library), only to have my mother laugh at me and ask how on earth could I read twenty books at a time, and to take them back.
Books were an escape for me, from the violence and destructive habitat of home.
I read the complete Famous Five from cover to cover, several times when I was around 7 years old, and immersed in a world that was brighter and happier, and where wrongs were righted.
Then I discovered the Chronicles of Narnia, and wished I could escape through the back of my wardrobe (During one particularly acute domestic altercation between my parents, I did hide in my wardrobe, wishing I could escape to Narnia).
Then I went onto The Hobbit, aged 10. I still remember the overwhelming feelings, the sheer wonderment as that book took me through a Christmas filled with the usual family strife, and into the new year and then into the world of the Lord of the Rings.
Then I moved on other series of books, wanting to explore the worlds and alternative realities created by Asimov, Bradbury, Stephen Donaldson, and in most recent years Ian M Banks, and Peter F Hamilton.
In fact to this day, I still love to find an author, who opens out stories of new worlds over several books.
In all those remembrances, I see that I was not just looking for escape but for a story, one that was bigger than the claustrophobic, violent, and anxiety producing world that bore down on me daily. A story I could escape into, inhabit, and live differently.
I wasn’t wanting a story of my making, I wanted a story that I could join myself to, be part of, that was epic, that I might become part of in it’s retelling.
And now as I think about it, and look at that huge new bible, there was a story looking for me.
The story of Jesus, found me, and I do get to go through the back of the wardrobe.
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I turn 40, this coming saturday. I will actually be on a plane, on my way home from speaking at Calvin College, in the USA, when that happens.
I’m usually birthday avoidant, with regards to myself. Growing up, the dysfunction and abuse that was the background swirl to my childhood, meant I kept them low key and to myself.
Then after becoming a Christian as an adult, I took that introspection, and let the seriousness of life get in the way of being open to much celebration. I think I equated celebration of birthdays as somehow incompatible with the fears I had about needing to escape my childhood pathologies.
So unconsciously I found that I had scheduled to be away until after my 40th Birthday. It took my wife to point out, and ask, what kind of person forgets their own 40th, for me to take a long look at that aspect of myself?
So I managed to change my flights to get back on my birthday, planned a party for last weekend. I don’t do parties, but decided to embrace my ‘inner partyness’.
Last friday, with friends, amazing food, and a close up magician making memories for us all, I had the most wonderful time. And whilst I have had birthday meals in the past, this is one weekend when I extravagantly, and indulgently celebrated, my life.
They say life begins at 40. I feel mine began when I converted to Jesus, aged 17. A life since then that has been full of affirmation, accountability, growth, challenges, with others, with Jesus, that I love, and am so grateful for.
And family. My wife and kids, who know a different way of life, to my family of origin, that has been so redeeming, and healing. But more, being part of the family of the church, with it’s brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles, parents and grandparents. So of you reading this, are part of that great adventure.
That has been the most amazing thing for me to celebrate as I turn 40.
Photos from my party are here.
Now I have several other meals with friends, and celebrations to get to over the next two weeks, to continue the party.
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Many of you have followed and supported my wife and I as we have battled for our youngest daughters special education needs. She is on the Autistic Spectrum Disorder, with regards to her needs and challenges.
There is a new private members bill before our parliament, that if enacted would enable access to needed support for people like my daughter.
However the bill requires at least 100 Members of Parliament (MP) to be heard and voted on, Friday 27th February, and most MPs would have left for home before a Friday.
So with only 14 MPs committed to attending, there are only 35 days to encourage others to attend and vote on the bill.
The National Autistic Society, have an online form that you can complete that then emails your local MP directly, asking them to be there for the vote. So if you are british, can I encourage you to complete the online form, which takes a couple of minutes?
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Jamie Smith has posted more details about the day I am involved at Calvin next week, based on the two chapters of a book I have been asked to write.Exploring the Emerging Church: Theology, Culture, Ritual, and Meaning
Jason Clark, Kevin Corcoran, Peter Rollins; with respondents James K.A. Smith, Lori Wilson, Michael Wittmer; hosted by Nathan Bierma
Calvin Symposium on Worship
Grand Rapids, Mich.
January 29, 2009The full post by Jamie with more details is here, including the rough drafts of our chapters, that will require significant re-writing over the next six months. At least mine will
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I will be watching Obama’s inauguration, at 1700GMT (via the BBC), along with several other billion human companions around the world.
I don’t have expectations that he is messianic, and he himself seems self aware and able to express an understanding of his limitations, and those of government.
And I’m not cynical enough not to be moved by what his inauguration represents.
So I will watch, pray, and enter into the experience of people in the US and around the world, excited by the power of vision and leadership, and the hope that springs from that.
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I began a 6 week series yesterday in our sunday service using the Apostles Creed as part of the short term catechism I mentioned in my last post. The resources I’ve located and am using are below. Are their any you have used, or come across?
“I Believe”: Exploring the Apostles’ Creed, A McGrath
Affirming the Apostles’ Creed, J I Packer
The Apostles’ Creed for Today, Justo L. Gonzalez
Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition, Jaroslav Pelikan
Apostles’ Creed: DVD Starring: Dr. N.T. Wright, Dr. Alistair McGrath
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24 people in two groups, started our short term catechism and missional order ‘Flow’, just over a week ago.I outlined the background to Flow in a previous post, and we are putting all the resources to Flow in a mini site, flow.vineyardchurch.org.
Out of all the things we have done as a community, this is one I am very excited about, for seeing lives changed, and Christian identity formation.
I’ve included information on the concepts for Flow, and how it responds to the liturgical formations of consumerism, in the book project I am writing for, with Pete Rollins and Scott McKnight.
