Ron Cole : off the map...navigating life.

Keepin' up with the Joneses...an urgent apeal for a missional adventure

The Jones family is traveling the world in their truck, exploring the world that God loves and seeking to bring real transformation and change. They have just visited 12 countries, hosting leadership training events, encouraging social enterprises, and supporting missional entrepreneurs in a sustainable and effective way.

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Video by Bill Kinnon.

Its been an incredible time but the financial crunch has caused a number of funders to drop out and now the funds are depleted, just as they head south and east towards the next 25 countries.

The Joneses need to raise $30,000 by the end of the year but the urgent need is $5000 for visas, diesel, ferry and plane tickets that are needed immediately. Can you help them by supporting them financially or by spreading the word?

There is a link in the top right hand corner of my blog, for info and how to donate. Or you might think about the following options...from Andrew.

I've followed Andrew's missional stories for years now...He's the real deal, on the ground doing it. It's not an extravagant holiday, it's living by faith a day at a time...providing great teaching and resources in places where they don't have the access. It would be great if we could all give a little to see the Jones family finish this missional adventure.

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.

 

a friend in need...

Many of you know John Smulo (SmuloSpace and Missional Apologetic).

John is originally from California, but recently lived in Australia for nine years. In Australia, John was a pastor and Founding Director of the School of Apologetics at the Centre for Evangelism and Global Mission at Morling College in Sydney. He was also part-time faculty at Morling College. John and his family (his wife is Alex and they have four boys) moved back to the States and started a new church in the Sacramento, California, area.

I don’t know all the details, but I do know that one day last fall John found that he was no longer the pastor of this new church. He was left without income, although he has since picked up a part-time job teaching at Capital Bible College and is starting a new missional church (which has no funds to support him at this point).

Still, the transition has made it very difficult to support his wife and four children and they are now in danger of losing everything, including the probable foreclosure on their home.

One of those verses that has always haunted me is James 2:15-16, “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?”

On those words Rick Meigs has some great ideas on how we can help John and his family out in this trying season they find themselves.

Check out Ricks ideas...Here

Brennan Manning podcast...Ruthless Trust

Dick Staub, Seattle resident and well known faith and culture conversationalist has a great podcast he's pulled out of his archives. Brennan Manning is the Catholic-priest-turned-itinerant-evangelist who wrote the popular Ragamuffin Gospel. In Ruthless Trust he explores the question: “Can God be Trusted,” and moves the conversation beyond simple intellectual assent to a deeper experience of joy found in passionately trusting God. A gem of an interview found in the Dick Staub archives from a man who knows whereof he speaks.

My book case contains every book Brennan has written. I find myself constantly going back to them, like the joy in visiting a dear old friend. I had the wonderful experience a few years ago with a group of friends, to hang out and listen to Brennan for a weekend. I can remember seeing him, and seeing this weak tired aged man and thinking...he's never going to make it through the weekend.

But when ever it came time for him to speak, it was like he plugged into something that was way beyond him. I have never heard such wisdom, clarity, simplicity, compassion and humility. Anyways, if you've never heard Brennan speak before, I highly recommend listening to Dick's interview with him...

This is Part One of a series of Four

the blog of the manifesto...

An Emergent Manifesto of hope and the book itself

thanks to Mark Berry at Way Out West for the heads up

 

An Emergent Manifesto of hope and the book itself

thanks to Mark Berry at Way Out West for the heads up

Blogs...Christian Blogging survey results

Cory Miller has released the results from a survey of over 360 Christian bloggers, including me. Its called “Blogging Believers: Who's Out There in the Blogosphere?” Interesting to see the largest group was “Senior Pastors”. Cory recommends this list of bloggers.

monasticism...the power of context

Joan Chittester writes that Benedict intended to “...“to create a way of life immersed in the scriptures, devoted to the common life, and dedicated to the development of human community. It was simple, regular and total, a way of living, not a way of serving; it was an attitude toward life, not a church ministry. Benedict, in other words, is not trying to create a clerical system. He is trying to create a human family. He is not out trying to collect priests though he does recognize that a priest may well have a monastic vocation.”

Simple. Regular. Total. A way of living. Not a way of serving.

This nailed me with particular force this morning. Monasticism (the old or the new, cloistered or friar-ed) was never intended to be a program or an add-on. It is total. It is baptism. It is immersion... in a whole new way of being. This is a major part of the reason it has so much power to form us. It is what Gladwell calls the “Power of Context” in his book The Tipping Point. Context is powerful.

We can read all we want and study all we want and write all we want and blog until we are blue in the fingers but unless we have an environment that supports our formation we might as well be trying to push a boulder up a hill with a spoon.

As I think about monasticism, thanks to Kevin Rains for the above words...for putting it into context for me.

Furious Pursuit...Part One

As I mentioned last week in an earlier post I'm going to take a look at the latest book from Tim King and Frank Martin. Tim sent me an e-mail just before Christmas with the gracious offer of the book, and the invitation to post some of my thoughts. It was nice to finally get into the book on the weekend. I was taking my daughter Ashley over to the mainland back to college, so the Ferry ride provided the perfect refuge to immerse myself into "The Furious Pursuit".

Having been in this journey for some 40 years, it is frustrating to think of the number of times I have been caught up in the under brush of religion. Having been set free to run wild in the expansive green fields of grace that Jesus offers, unconciously my mind seems to get lured by traps. So rather than settle for then freedom of our creator Father's incredible love story we often default to something far less beautiful and live our lives as slaves trapped in myths and lies.

One of the best books I've read in my faith journey has been " Raggamuffin Gospel" by Brennan Manning. I was blessed about a year ago to have been able to meet Brennan, and be part of a worship team in a conference he was leading. I put " Furious Pursuit: Why God Will Never Let You Go ", up there with Raggamuffin Gospel. I would think both Tim and Frank would take that as a compliment, see as the quote Brennan from time to time.

We all need to have books like this on our shelves, and night tables for those times when we're worn out, out of breath, living in fear, feeling isolated...books like " Furious Pusuit " are constant reminders of the true love story.

Part one of the book is titled " A Romance to be Embraced: The Passion that Drew You ", and is comprised of 4 chapters...

1. God's Relentless Pusuit: Why God Can't Resist You
2. Leaving Your Story Behind: Trading Fear, Pain and Lonliness for God's Unfailing Promise
3. Finally You Are Understood: How God's Comlpete Knowledge of You Sets You Free
4. God's Larger Story of Love: Trade the Law for the Law of Love

Furious Pursuit is very easy reading, and when I say that, I don't mean it doesn't lack depth. It is a book that even the person just beginning to walk the journey can engage as well as the weary pilgrim with all his luggage and souveniers that he has collected thus far. It is absolutely refreshing, and breath taking to see the simplicity of the story, without theology, doctrine and religion obstructing the eternal beauty that God wants to show us. In Furious Pursuit, Tim King and Frank Martin reaveal this God who will never let us go through stories from their experience, through stories of pastoral ministry and rich qoutes from well known authors.

I love the anology as they share a scene from M. Night Shyamalan's film The Village.

It is a chilling scene in which Ivy Walker decides to travel through an unfamiliar forest to retrieve medicine for her ailing fiance'. Ivy is blind and the woods are thought to be inhabited by beasts...monsters referred to in the film only as " those we don't speak of."

Her father, Edward Walker, explains to the village elders why he would allow his blind daughter to go on such a perilous journey. They are angry with him beacuse they know what dangers lurk in the woods. " How could you have sent "? asks one of the woman elders. " She is blind."

Ivy's father bows his head and answers, " She is more capable than most in this village. And she is led by love. The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe."

Is there any more potent force than love? Is there anything in life that brings greater motivation, higher expectations, deeper introspections, better clarity? Is there an emotion that elicits more passion or brings out more fury?

" The world moves for love," says Edward Walker. " It kneels before it in awe." When you are led by love, nothing is powerful enough to stop you. Nothing can discourage you from your quest. And God is led by love.

More than that, God is love. It is his nature, his primary focus, his driving force. He is moved by love, provoked by love to press forward, to stay the course, to relentlessly pursue his beloved. Although he is grieved when we stray from him, he remains unfazed by our waywardness, undistracted in our inability to reamin faithful. You and I are pursued by love. And the world moves for him. It kneels before him in awe.

This book is written for thsoe who want desparately to believe that truth. It is for those who long to feel loved and wanted by God. It is for those who want to believe in the furious faithfulness of God yet struggle to see it. It is for those who want to trust deeply in the character of God.

This book is not for those who have it all together, who never question God or stumble as they try to follow him. If you don't struggle with sin, shame, grief, or loneliness, then by all means read something else. This book is for those of us who struggle with little else.

During the same scene in The Village, one of the town's elders sums up his thoughts about the blind but persistent Ivy Walker journeying through the woods on her own. " Ivy is running toward hope," he says. " Let her run."

We share Ivy's helplessness as she struggles through the wild and frightening woodlands, her hands stretching out in the darkness as she feels her way through the thicket of trees and brush, fighting to make her way back home.

I found Part One to be a reminder of my own journey, to the reality of the days when we feel blind, like helpless children stumbling through the dark and dangerous forests of our lives...tripping, and falling, getting up only to fall again, and those days when the storms of doubt and confusion blow in unexpectedly.

This book is a constant reminder that we run towards hope, and in the midst of it all we are furiously pursued by a wild and scandalously loving God...and we welcome the better story of a much BIGGER GOD.

I'm loving this book...stay tuned for Part Two...A Courtship to be Nurtured: The Purpose That Keeps You.

Remembering...the inheritance is available now!!!

This beautiful reflection comes from Ron Block, and was posted on Andrew Peterson's site. It's amazing how over time our minds default and we begin to live in our own created stories, myths instead of the actual truth. Rather than living in the Kingdom, and laying hold of every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, a royal inheritance...we settle for rummaging through the dumpsters of earthly living...

The Baby of Bethlehem was born so I could become right with God - and not only right with Him, but indwelt, directed, and empowered by Him. That infinite inheritance is available in the here and now - Christ is now our peace, our patience, our holiness, our love, our life. He is our all in all. But in order to access that inheritance, we have to let go of the mindset of self-effort, of self-improvement, of self-actualization. I don’t at all mean our actions shouldn’t be good actions - but what we must recognize is at the heart of our inner being, Christ lives, and we are complete in Him, holy, and acceptable to God. We don't start at the bottom of the mountain of holiness and start the climb; God has put us at the top in Christ. All that remains is to rely on the indwelling Overcomer. That is why Paul could say both, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” and “I press forward to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” “When I am weak, then I am strong,’” and “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” We are to trust violently in the indwelling Spirit, always reaching to trust more fully. We “cease from our own works” but “labor to enter His rest.” We move over from self-effort to putting our concentration on inner reliance, from trying to be good to living from His indwelling righteousness.

He was born in a common stable filled with the dirt, manure, and junk of animality. God is still striking tents in the dirt and grit of human flesh; He is still entering the messy human situation. Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God, but through Him by grace we become His brothers and sisters; the Spirit of Jesus Christ washes, enters, indwells, directs, and empowers His people. Eze 36:27 says, “...I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” That’s why the holy Baby was born. ( HT...to poet, musician, thinker and orthodox friend, Matthew Davidson )

sometimes its not the distance...but, the depth

Anyone who as wandered the landscape of Strathcona Park, the arduous journey into the high places. The grunting, and the endless switch-backs, leaning forward gazing at the toes of your hiking boots...the mind constantly playing against you. The little voice, " your not going to make it." But suddenly it seems you break through the trees to mounatain vista that takes your breath away.

In my journey of wandering around the blogosphere, my journey took me to one such vista, " The Sacred Art of Living ", the space of Christine Valters Paintner. It is a place of beauty captured in word and image. She always manages to reveal vistas that take my breath away. I suggest wandering in that direction and enjoy the view.

The following quote is from a recent post, that just seem to capture where I seem to have found myself...where I'm discovering that in my faith journey it is not always the distance traveled that is important...but the depth of the journey.

If, as Herod, we fill our lives with things, and again with things…
If we consider ourselves so unimportant that we must fill every moment of our lives with action,
when will we have the time to make the long, slow journey across the desert as did the Magi?
Or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds?
Or brood over the coming of the child as did Mary?
For each of us, there is a desert to travel. A star to discover.
And a being within ourselves to bring to life.

-Author Unknown