the Weary Pilgrim

workin' for God...barely hangin' on

There's an old saying, " give someone enough rope and they'll... "

I had coffee with a recent gradaute of a mainland Bible College this afternoon who is starting on as a childrens minstry pastor in a local church. He's looking for shelter, a place to live. Vacancy rate in the Victoria area is at an all time low, and if your fortunate enough to find something, you might have to choose between a roof over your head or food. Victoria or any major BC city is expensive to live in.

So I start asking questions...after four years of seminary what's your student loan? This young person has a student loan of 26,000$, and the last year of his course he didn't qualify, or couldn't get a student loan...so he borrowed 8,000 on his credit card.

His job will also require he need a vehicle.

Sooooo, I ask him what his salary will be? His salary will be 30,000$. And I ask him, what will there expectation be for that salary? The expectation is a full time work schedule, 40 hours a week.

Now the poverty level in Canada for a single person living in a major city in Canada is said to be some where around 21, 000$.

Oh and this isn't the only story I've heard.

And, this is advancing what ?????????

sustaining relevance...

From Len ( Next Reformation ), in Kelowna...

Reggie McNeal writes,

“The point is.. all the effort to fix the church misses the point. You can build the perfect church–and they still won’t come. People are not looking for a great church… The age in which institutional religion holds appeal is passing away.

“Church leaders seem unable to grasp this simple implication of the new world–people outside the church think church is for church people, not for them.”

* * *
“The church was created to be the people of God to join him in his redemptive mission in the world. The church was never intended to exist for itself. It was and is the chosen instrument of God to expand his kingdom. The church is the bride of Christ. Its union with him is designed for reproduction, the growth of the kingdom. Jesus did not teach his disciples to pray, “Thy church come.” The kingdom is the destination. In its institutional existence the church abandoned its real identity and reason for existence.

“God did not give up on his mission in the Old Testament when Israel refused to partner with him. God is a reckless lover. He decided to go on with the mission himself. We do not need to be mistaken about this: if the church refuses its missional assignment, God will do it another way. The church has [refused], and he is [moving on]. God is pulling end runs around the institutional North American church to get to people in the streets. God is still inviting us to join him on mission, but it is the invitation to be part of a movement, not a religious club.”

The build it and they will come mentality has come and gone, no matter how shiny and attractive we make it. Attraction works for awhile, but it becomes a weak magnetic force after awhile, nothing seems to stick and stay. So, we try and create something better...because our survival is in their coming.

We have come to believe growth of the church, the numbers who show up on a given Sunday is building the Kingdom. Have we really expanded the Kingdom...or have we actually caused it to shrink.

By looking at where the time and $$$ of an organization is spent, we can determine their central purpose. Does the majority of time and money flow out out, or is it consumed by the church, seen as a type of investment to hopefully increase numbers bring more money in to keep it going for another day. That is the purpose...if we can not sustain the building, and the Sunday morning service...we have failed.

My oldest daughter grew up in the church, a degree in Poli sci and environmental policy, she no longer finds the church relevant. She is passionate about her faith, social justice, the environment and local community. She finds the church to preoccupied with itself. Sustainability, is a reality in her everyday living, as it is for most young people these days. When she invests $$$ in expressing her faith, she looks at what is the best return on her investment. ( The parable of the talents, what investment will yield the greatest return for The Kingdom ).

She lives communally in large house in Vancouver with 9 people ( 3 couples, and 3 singles ). They discuss issues of faith, politics, environment, and daily living all around a large common table. The neighbourhood that surrounds them is a collage of humanity...gays, straights, addicts, homeless, wealthy, educated and iliterate. These are the neighbours, the people they interact with daily. In Romans 12, it says, " So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it." She and her friends try and live this out. To her this is sort of church.

I am increasingly find far more opportunities to invest and expand God's Kingdom outside the parameters of the existing church. Opportunities with First Nations people on the reserves, and on the inner city streets. Whether I ever get one of these people into a church does not worry me. For me it is their friendship, helping them to discover Jesus, and to find Him in their daily living.

In the existing economy, and as we strive for more sustainable practices, and the best returns on our investment of time and money...I wonder if the " business as usual " church can exist much longer.

subverting the ordinary...

tr.v.   sub·vert·ed, sub·vert·ing, sub·verts

1. To destroy completely; ruin:
2. To undermine the character, morals, or allegiance of; corrupt.
3. To overthrow completely

Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw are making the rounds, they were in Toronto ( Church of the Redeemer, Bloor Street ) a few nights ago...pimping the movie " Ordinary Radicals ", and talking about subverting the empire. Shane Claiborne has done wonderful work expanding the Kingdom, and God's mission. " Irresistible Revolution ", was a great book revealing the reality of simplicity...that small mustard seeds can grow into great things.

But on every seat...glossy brochures...Simple Way's new magazine " Conspire "; Ordinary Radicals, the Movie; Jesus for President, the book.

The Ordinary Radicals website, a website featuring some of the most highly regarded thinkers in the North American church. Among the names I noticed Tony Campolo –a man I greatly admire. It is hard to overstate my regard for Tony, he has mentored and help shape my faith. The blog is an advertisement for the upcoming documentary and as it lists, features Interviews with: Becky Garrison, Shane Claiborne, Jim Wallis, Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo, Rob Bell, John Perkins, Brooke Sexton, Michael Heneise, St. Margret McKenna, Logan Laituri, Zack Exley, Aaron Weiss and many more Ordinary Radicals. All great people, shaping the Kingdom...but;

I am frustrated by the absolute “un-ordinary-ness” of the people it is about. Alot of the people on the list are international superstars in the christian marketing culture, have been on “The Colbert Report” and CBC's " The Hour ", any number of high profile talk shows and television appearances. Most of the above names are regulars on the conference circuit. They are highly educated and enjoy flexibility and some notoriety. Wallis is the founder of Sojourners, a prolific author, and teaches at Harvard. Campolo " Red Letter Christians ", was a personal adviser to Clinton and a protégé of Albert Einstein. Claiborne is ...irresistible. McLaren the" New Kind of Christian ",is considered by most to be the foremost spokesman for the emerging church. Rob Bell, Nooma Video series, " The Velvet Elvis "...speaker extraordinare.

Subverting the empire: the movie. Subverting the empire: the magazine. Subverting the empire: the book tour.

Sadly we are being subverted from the reality of the " extra-ordinariness " of faithful living. It's not books, magazines, the conference hype. It is those simple acts of faith...stopping and talking, helping, feeding the poor drunken addict you find passed out on the street.

We want to subvert the empire...imagine if we all started living, by simply practicing extravagant love and faith everyday.

Missional Synchroblog...

From Rick Meigs...

To help reclaim it, I propose a synchronized blog for Monday, June 23rd on the topic, “What is Missional?”

There are any number of ways one could blog on this topic. You could illustrate what the term means, describe what it is not and how it is wrongly used, define the term, explore its misuses, explore its theological foundations, or you name it.

"missional landscape...borderless, scandalous table fellowship"

Well, here I am, it's Sunday night and I've had a week to reflect on " Missional ". I thought in the time the musings tumbling in my mind would have settled out and solidified into something concrete.Well, they have and they haven't. Maybe missional musing, should always be unsettled. But this morning, a typical Sunday morning gathering and these sound bytes; " ' we come here to meet God ', we come here for healing ', we come here to worship." Our focus is " Us " and " Place."

I love this quote from Ed Stetzer's Planting Missional Churches, " It's possible to be a missionary without ever leaving your zip code."

To understand " Missional", is to immerse ourselves in the reality of the gospels and rediscover that Jesus' church lived in the world and practiced an outrageous and scandalous table fellowship. From day one as Jesus calls his followers on a journey, he's not scouring the temples for the most religious and holy, he's not visiting the classrooms of Rabbi's for the wisest. Fisherman, tax collector, banker...a collection of the least likely to succeed on a faith journey. Jesus doesn't rent class room space to introduce a program, a plan, or start another religion. John's Gospel, in the opening chapters says Jesus pitched his tent in the midst of humanity, he moved into the neighborhood...Jesus moves his followers into the midst of humanity. They would journey dusty roads, back alleys, the open water...into poverty, oppression, sickness, homelessness, hunger.

The first experience of seminary on the road would be the Wedding Feast at Cana. Fascinating, that the introduction of the Good News would begin to unfold at a wedding, an instant snap shot of life. Here you would have the reality of life, community, family...the misfits, the dysfunction, the old, the young...the newly wed, and the nearly dead. Here Jesus, immerses, dunks his followers into the midst of humanity...as if to say, " this is what I'm all about...all of life, every speck of it. This is where I want you to live life, and give life."

This feasting and Table fellowship would weave its way throughout the gospels Here Jesus' followers would learn that missional may not be some arduous journey to a far off foreign land...that perhaps the longest journey maybe just sitting across the table of a stranger, the sick, the poor, and the oppressed. Whom you eat with defines whom you won't eat with. With Jesus it never appears to be a " social " program...it is radical, scandalous, outrageous...it's the Kingdom. It is the servant returning to his master's table with unopened invitations and list of excuses, and the master sending him out again. This time the servant heads to back alleys filled with syringes, skid row hotels, park benches, under bridges...any where, so his masters table will be filled to overflowing. All are welcomed all are invited. Here at this open table, we discover the world upside down...where suddenly the host is the guest, and the guest the host. Where the host is blessed more than the guest. Jesus entered into the other's world, and let them invite his followers as their house guests. In that way grace, life, healing, restoration could be poured back and forth.

Another story of outrageous table fellowship, is the feeding of the 5000.This table is not constructed of wood and four legs...it is the Lord standing on a hillside with 5 small barley loaves, and 2 fish, raising arms giving thanks and blessing. Two miracles here, one that 5000 people were fed...and 5000 people shared this table fellowship. There is the outrageous reality that in faith, we often find surplus when we welcome those outside our boundaries and borders.

These table fellowship stories could be the reality of what " Missional " is, it is " Sacramental Living." Not as a ritual, but as the redemptive imagination that is it's spiritual truth. It is sad in a sense that we have ritualized the bread and wine. This ritual of who's in and who's not...who's welcome and who's not. I wonder if Jesus imagined it to be that. Jesus table fellowship, the meals of bread and fish always reflected the Kingdom...surplus, and food the fed the poor. Jesus table fellowship always reflected the truth of the Kingdom, the truth of what missional should be about...redemption, restoration, justice, community, the reordering of a new creation.

And how can we forget the table fellowship stories after Jesus' resurrection. Jesus cooking fish on a charcoal fire on the beach. The disciples gone back to their old jobs fishing on the lake and not having much luck. Jesus calls out from the shore, telling them to drop their nets on the other side of the boat. They haul in an incredible draft of fish. Peter seeing his dear friend wades through the water to shore. On the beach Jesus, invites, welcomes, cooks fish for his friends on an open fire, and turns to Peter, " feed on my behalf." And I'm not talking just feeding food, a meal in the soup kitchen, I'm talking about feeding them the incarnational reality of the life of Jesus. In other words go and invite. To live in the neighborhood of Jesus...is to live and believe that all the world is welcome...to go. If the world is welcome to God, if my neighbor is welcome to God, then every living moment is a door into God into which the other is welcome. Our calling should be clear.

" It's possible to be a missionary without ever leaving your zip code." Missional is dispersed in the midst of humanity. Jesus mission started with leading of the Holy Spirit. He sends us into the world under the leading of the same Spirit. It is to bear witness, to build, to expand His Kingdom ...to redeem, restore, to feed, and to heal.

To read the rest of the Missional Synchro-blog musings, click on the following...

Other Synchroblog Contributors

Alan Hirsch
Alan Knox
Andrew Jones
Barb Peters
Bill Kinnon
Brad Brisco
Brad Grinnen
Brad Sargent
Brother Maynard
Bryan Riley
Chad Brooks
Chris Wignall
Cobus Van Wyngaard
Dave DeVries
David Best
David Fitch
David Wierzbicki
DoSi
Doug Jones
Duncan McFadzean
Erika Haub
Grace
Jamie Arpin-Ricci
Jeff McQuilkin
John Smulo
Jonathan Brink
JR Rozko
Kathy Escobar
Len Hjalmarson
Makeesha Fisher
Malcolm Lanham
Mark Berry
Mark Petersen
Mark Priddy
Michael Crane
Michael Stewart
Nick Loyd
Patrick Oden
Peggy Brown
Phil Wyman
Richard Pool
Rick Meigs
Rob Robinson
Ron Cole
Scott Marshall
Sonja Andrews
Stephen Shields
Steve Hayes
Tim Thompson
Thom Turner

Kent Leslie
Maria
Pat Loughery
Hamo
Dave Faulkner
Peter
Malcomb+
Arnau van Wyngaard

the collision with Jesus and sacrament...the fusion of mission

This is why we have often been at sea in thinking the Eucharist as first and foremost the representation of Christ's passion. You can see why: ' Do this in rememberance of me ' says the Lord as He breaks the bread and pours out the blood. That clearly brings the Passion to mind. But the more we focus on the Eucharist as the representation of the Passion in and of itself, the more I believe we lose that sense of the Eucharist as the act of encounter with the Risen Christ. ( Rowan Williams @ Trinity College, May 2002 )

Not to prove the Archbishop of Canterbury wrong, I decided to perform a random survey. Following a communion Sunday, during coffee I tossed out the question, " What does the Lord's Supper / Eucharist mean to you?"

Most peoples answers hinged on Jesus dying for their sins, and forgiveness. So, I'm wondering, when Jesus said, ' do this in rememberance of me ', have we been as Rowan Williams says, ' been out to sea in our thinking.'  

Brother Randy made the comment in an earlier post, " the fusion of mission and sacrament seem to be on my mind as of late." Man, I love that...in physics fusion is the release of incredible energy. I truly believe when Jesus says, ' do this in rememberance of me ', it wasn't to be thimble and wafer, a toast to a friend that took our place on death row, saving us from a death sentence. The spiritual reality behind the table and meal, us colliding with the Life of Jesus creates an incredible fusion reaction...a release of resurrection energy.

The sacraments are more about life than death. It is about our invitation and then us...inviting. It is us living the reality of the Lord's Supper. The fusion of mission and sacrament...is what Jesus says in ' do this ', it's living life abundantly.

The invitation to the Lord's table, to be at peace with God and to be a child of God is not determined by religious ritual performance, or even orthodoxy...it is determined by whether you believe Jesus when he tells you, God welcomes you. This is the redemptive imagination of Jesus, if you accept the invitation and welcome, anything is possible...if you don't, nothing is possible.

Sacramental living can be upsetting to some, it can be miraculous, an incredible dinner party and a time of redemption and restoration.

" Do ' THIS ' in remembrance of me." Don't try and turn it into a memorial like you wanted to do on the mountain when Jesus appeared with Moses and Elijah. As Peter was babbling, a light-radiant cloud enveloped them, and sounding from deep in the cloud a voice: "This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of my delight. Listen to him." The " This " is the redemptive imagination of Jesus. It is sacramental living...living constantly in the invitation and welcome of God. This is the spiritual reality, truth and power behind all things missional.

Have we forgotten that many of the resurrection stories pivot around invitation and welcome. Jesus invites himself into the locked upper room after his death...he then invites his disciples who have abandoned him to make him there guest. " Have you anything to eat ", Jesus asks. I love this beautiful divine redemptive waltz, first Jesus leads by inviting himself in....and then invites the disciples to lead. Sacramental living lives in this profound space, that Jesus always extends the welcome and invitation of God...and invites us to do the same. It always seems, between Jesus' open and welcoming invitation, and our invitation...that we have to errect something, hoops to jump through, barriers, boundaries...a fine print clause. We need to get out of the way.

How can we forget on the beach. The disciples gone back to there old jobs fishing on the lake, and not having much luck. Jesus calls out from the shore, telling them to cast their nets on the otherside of the boat. They haul in an incredible draft of fish. Peter seeing his dear friend wades through the water to shore. On the beach Jesus invites, welcomes, cooks fish for his friends on an open fire...and turns to Peter, " Feed on my behalf." In other words, go and invite.

Sacramental living in the neighborhood of Jesus...is to live and believe that all the world is welcome...to go and invite. If the world is welcome to God, if my neighbor is welcome to God...then every living moment is a door into God in which the other may be welcomed...then our calling should be clear. This is sacrament...this is the fusion of mission.

Think of in the upper room, the night before Jesus' death. There gathered around the table...traitor; a friend who would deny ever knowing him; a group of followers that stumbled, messed up, who weren't really sure who he was or what his Kingdom were about, but, the invitation... was welcome and open.

Welcome...Come,take and eat...you go do the same.

disturbing...the good news

"The more I read the gospels; the more I try to understand what Jesus and His Kingdom are really all about, the more he has the audacity to come into my life and totally turn it upside down.

He shows me the real gods I serve and worship.
He makes me think about every dollar I spend - who is benefitting from it and how?

He shows me whether my life sustains and enhances His creation...or do I use and abuse, waiting for a new heaven and new earth.
He challenges me to make my children into risk-taking disciples, using thier unique gifts, instead of neat, luke warm, middle-class carbon copies of myself.

He asks me to go places where I am uncomfortable, and to invite people into my house when I’d much rather have a quiet night alone.
He intrudes on my free time and tells me to invest it in the things that matter to him.
He tells me that the politics that seemingly support my interests aren’t necessarily the ones that support his Kingdom.

He shows me church is important...but not as important as His Kingdom. 

Far from being a cosmic Mr. Fix-it, Jesus is taking every priority and ambition that I ever held and - without so much as asking - turning it over like he did the tables in the temple.

The Good News...it's disturbing...it's life changing if you read it...and let It read you. 

missional isn't magic...its (extra)ordinary living

"These signs we call sacraments say to us that the power of the Holy is available to us not by way of magical rites but through the natural channels along which our energy flows for daily living; profound truths mediated through everyday deeds - taking, breaking, eating, drinking, washing and spilling." (Colin M. Morris)

These sacraments of bread and wine...we sometimes loose the profound reality, and the awesome vision of redemptive imagination they point to. It's almost as if we've turned them into a rote ritual, like the secret handshake of a club membership. Bread, wine...Body, blood...broken and poured out. This body, this christ...His church.

Jesus led outside the walls of the city, outside the walls of the temple...the walls of religion. Its is here the sacrifice is made, the body broken and blood poured out. The body is poured out into messiness of humanity.

The sacraments are not the ritual to signify your " IN "...it should ignite the redemptive imagination that it is all about being " OUT ". The sacraments point to the reality that missional living is poured out. Paul exhorts the Galatians, " Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

Missional is just extra ordinary living...knowing Christ is in us...to break ourselves open...and to pour Jesus out on every moment of our everyday living. Missional is sacramental living...being bread and wine...body broken and poured out.

at the cross road...lost in translation

So, on the weekend I'm listening to someone talk about how in the coming years the church and Christians are going to bear much hardship. I'm thinking, well, if we carry on doing what we're doing...yep, that's the truth. Church numbers will continue to dwindle, enrollment in bible colleges and seminaries will continue to drop and more churches will have financial difficulties. The hardship won't be from the message of the gospel...or from persecution...it will be because we've bought into the same culture, the same economy and the same empire.

Lost in translation...that's where were at. It's like Jesus was speaking a foreign language ( which he was ), and we had to translate it so it was understandable. In doing so, THE GOOD NEWS, is nothing more than a sales pitch for a better life...a philosophy...a more social conscience.

Last week, I shared this quote by Walter Wink about wrestling, and the Holy Spirit being there the whole time strengthening us both. How much do we let the Holy Spirit strengthen us...and just let Jesus speak to us afresh again. Jesus said if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear the knowledge of the Kingdom of heaven would be given to us.

Maybe it's time to spend more time immersing ourselves in the Gospels...listening to Jesus...seeing and hearing the Kingdom. Do we really need to have the voice of Jesus filtered through that of man? Do we need some one to put a lens over the scenes in the gospel to create a more comfortable cultural image?

Read it...look at it...the scenes are vivid, and clear...and his voice left people in awe. If your having problems understanding, pray for the friend, the counselor that Jesus promised...go to your room, pull out your mat and wrestle...the truth will come.

It becomes startling clear in the gospels that Jesus pitched his tent in the midst of the messiness of humanity...the unacceptable, the oppressed. There were no boundaries, no borders, all lines of exclusion were erased...His table an open invitation. We read and we see the Kingdom, Jesus says, " I only do and say, what my Father is already doing and saying." How can we ignore that reality...how do we distort the voice of Jesus, how do we filter the life out of such images.

Thats why I say we are lost in translation, we've downloaded our version into our culture co-opting a mere glimpse of the Kingdom with the power of earthly empires.

When Jesus called together his band of stumbling misfits, his message wasn't for them to hang in there until the Godhead decided to pull the final curtain on the stage of life and picking everyone up at the front door, taking them home.

Reading the gospels, you just might get the crazy idea that the Kingdom was about Now...as much as it was about the future. You could get the idea that Jesus was in favor of outrageous hospitality, and scandalous forgiveness and grace...where the last were first, where those that did a half days work got paid as much as those who worked all day...where the sinners where saints. Small radical communities that were criticized for there extravagant giving, for accepting the wrong people...for pouring out grace as if it were free. Also reading the gospels you might even come to believe that the sacred could be found outside the temple, in back allies filled with dumpsters and dirty syringes, and skid row hotels. That glimmers of light could be found in the darkest places of the world.

We don't need to translate the gospels, use a lens to filter their images. We need to live them. The more we live them...the more the Kingdom becomes visible. And when the Kingdom becomes visible it will subvert the empires of the world.

Jesus in the Gospels, says we will do even greater things. Well, as a church we need to immerse ourselves in the gospels again, and pray earnestly for the same Spirit that brooded over creation, the same Spirit that filled Jesus, the same Spirit that resurrected Jesus from the grave...if that Spirit does not fill His church, it is dead.

We don't need a better, a more cultural understandable translation of the gospel...we need to be transformed into the gospel through the living reality of Jesus...and the power of the Holy Spirit. Only then will His will be done on earth as in heaven...thy Kingdom come.

Tonight...the Prodigal Hours

For those of you who thought you might like to come to "Prodigal Hours" : a mixed media reflection on reconcilation.  It is TONIGHT: 

 

 7pm  in the Stephenson Room,  Emmanuel Baptist Church. 2121 Cedar Hill Cross Road. 

Admission is free -refreshments by donation. 

 

 

Heads-up from Matthew Davidson....

Hello friends,

This post is just to let you know about an art installation coming up this month called 'the prodigal hours'.

This is a one-time event featuring the following:

1. Free-standing visual artwork by several local artists,
2. Readings by Victoria's poet laureate Carla Funk
3. A soundtrack/audio collage composed and compiled by Matthew Christopher Davidson (i.e. me), a local musician

The theme of the evening is reconciliation. We would love to see you there! There is no cost to come, it is on a Monday night, and refreshments will be available by donation. There is a 70-minute 'program' of short poetry readings at 10-minute intervals, and music in between, starting at around 7:20 PM, but it is totally informal and so it's OK to just drop in, although you're encouraged to come for the whole program, as it promises to be excellent.

Here's the map to Emmanuel Baptist Church.

 

For those of you who thought you might like to come to "Prodigal Hours" : a mixed media reflection on reconcilation.  It is TONIGHT: 

 

 7pm  in the Stephenson Room,  Emmanuel Baptist Church. 2121 Cedar Hill Cross Road. 

Admission is free -refreshments by donation. 

 

 

Heads-up from Matthew Davidson....

Hello friends,

This post is just to let you know about an art installation coming up this month called 'the prodigal hours'.

This is a one-time event featuring the following:

1. Free-standing visual artwork by several local artists,
2. Readings by Victoria's poet laureate Carla Funk
3. A soundtrack/audio collage composed and compiled by Matthew Christopher Davidson (i.e. me), a local musician

The theme of the evening is reconciliation. We would love to see you there! There is no cost to come, it is on a Monday night, and refreshments will be available by donation. There is a 70-minute 'program' of short poetry readings at 10-minute intervals, and music in between, starting at around 7:20 PM, but it is totally informal and so it's OK to just drop in, although you're encouraged to come for the whole program, as it promises to be excellent.

Here's the map to Emmanuel Baptist Church.

 

For those of you who thought you might like to come to "Prodigal Hours" : a mixed media reflection on reconcilation.  It is TONIGHT: 

 

 7pm  in the Stephenson Room,  Emmanuel Baptist Church. 2121 Cedar Hill Cross Road. 

Admission is free -refreshments by donation. 

 

 

Heads-up from Matthew Davidson....

Hello friends,

This post is just to let you know about an art installation coming up this month called 'the prodigal hours'.

This is a one-time event featuring the following:

1. Free-standing visual artwork by several local artists,
2. Readings by Victoria's poet laureate Carla Funk
3. A soundtrack/audio collage composed and compiled by Matthew Christopher Davidson (i.e. me), a local musician

The theme of the evening is reconciliation. We would love to see you there! There is no cost to come, it is on a Monday night, and refreshments will be available by donation. There is a 70-minute 'program' of short poetry readings at 10-minute intervals, and music in between, starting at around 7:20 PM, but it is totally informal and so it's OK to just drop in, although you're encouraged to come for the whole program, as it promises to be excellent.

Here's the map to Emmanuel Baptist Church.

policing blogs...freedom is always a threat

( image via Phillip Retuta, Graphic Designer )

Bill Millar shares a concern that is starting to percolate within the United Church of Canada, ethical standards and standards of practice for ministry personel who blog...

WHEREAS The United Church of Canada has established Ethical Standards and Standards of Practice for Ministry Personnel; and

WHEREAS maintaining a Blog, or online journal, is becoming a common practice for ministry personnel; and

WHEREAS the established Ethical Standards and Standards of Practice for Ministry Personnel are silent on the practice of Blogging, and other online journaling; and

WHEREAS the practice of many employers is to set guidelines regarding Blogs and other online journals;

THEREFORE we propose that the Executive of General Council direct the appropriate body to include guidelines for maintaining a Blog,or other online  contributions, within the Ethical Standards and Standards of Practice for Ministry Personnel.

One has to believe it was only a matter of time before some kind of policing had to take place in the blogospehere. Every church/denomination has some form of fundamentalism attaching itself to the community...these are the sacred stone tablets we gather around to protect at all costs, sometimes even more sacred than scripture itself. 

I know in my own journey of blogging for 5 years I have dared from time to time to pull these tablets out and poked and prodded questioning their content. In doing so I have been called into line, I have been asked to remove some posts.I have been treated with suspicion, seen as a threat to leadership and to the community. Even writing disclaimers does not seem to ease the tension.

Freedom is always a threat.

Is it really necessary to police blogs? Should there be freedom to write about anything? What are the sacred tablets that should not be poked, prodded and questioned?

My experience is that the blogosphere does a good job of monitoring itself. Comments are a great tool to challenge the writer, opening up conversation and dialog around different issues of faith.

Freedom is always a threat...and threats need to be controlled.