Saw a massive yellow hummer today at Target with a "Choose Life" license plate. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

1 in 4 Americans can't think of recent positive contribution by Christians

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_16432579

One in four Americans said they couldn't think of a single positive societal contribution made by Christians in recent years, according to a nationwide survey released Monday. -- The Denver Post

Can you? (You don't have to be an American to play along.)

Planting bulbs is kinda like believing in something unseen.

God is not a white man

This was just shared among my FB friends and I thought I'd post it here. What do you think? 

Ironically, considering that he's singing about how "God is love," which is certainly Biblical, I can still imagine folks being offended by the song. Were you? If so, why? If not, why not?

I'm going to come down on the not offended side. I think his point that God is not at all like we imagine him to be is important. And the fact that Christians are just as likely to mis-imagine him is also important. Even when we've got a lot of the "right" info straight out of the Bible, it's still easy to get caught up in stuff that's not in there. I know I do this with people -- imagine them to be something they're not -- so it makes sense that I'd mess it up with God as well. It's good to be reminded of that. 

And so, from nothing, our universe begins.

I'm currently reading (and listening to on CD -- I go back and forth) Bill Bryson's book, A Short History of Nearly Everything. I love his description of the beginning of the universe. Not only did it strike me that he holds to the idea of ex nihilo, but he also captures so well the grandeur and beauty of "Let there be light...."

It is natural but wrong to visualize the singularity as a kind of pregnant dot hanging in a dark, boundless void. But there is no space, no darkness. The singularity has no "around" around it. There is no space for it to occupy, no place for it to be. We can't even ask how long it has been there -- whether it has just lately popped into being, like a good idea, or whether it has been there forever, quietly awaiting the right moment. Time doesn't exist. There is no past for it to emerge from. 

And so, from nothing, our universe begins.

In a single blinding pulse, a moment of glory much too swift and expansive for any form of words, the singularity assumes heavenly dimensions, space beyond conception. In the first lively second (a second that many cosmologists will devote careers to shaving into ever-finer wafers) is produced gravity and the other forces that govern physics. In less than a minute the universe is a million billion miles across and growing fast. There is a lot of heat now, ten billion degrees of it, enough to begin the nuclear reactions that create the lighter elements -- principally hydrogen and helium, with a dash (about one atom in a hundred million) of lithium. In three minutes, 98 percent of all the matter there is or will ever be has been produced.  We have a universe. It is a place of the most wondrous and gratifying possibility, and beautiful, too. And it was all done in about the time it takes to make a sandwich. 

Denominations and Accountability

When we attended the Church of the Sojourners in San Francisco, the church that John Alexander pastored at the time, one of Rob's largest complaints was that they had no oversight or accountability from anyone besides themselves. They were a house church that wasn't, at the time, affiliated with any other house churches, nor any denomination. They did have ties to other house churches, most notably Church of the Servant King, but there was no formal accountability structure. 

This, and several other issues that Rob was dealing with, eventually led us to join City Church instead, which was just starting up in a little chapel in the Presidio. But the questions that Rob put to John Alexander seem to have gotten John thinking about the idea of accountability between churches. He even mentions, in his Stop Going to Church and Be the Church book that I've referenced several times in recent posts, the decision making process that he and the other church leaders went through as they considered the issue and tried to determine what might work best for their congregation. 

They eventually developed a consortium of churches in which members of one congregation would (on a yearly basis, I think it was) travel to one of the other house churches and live among the members for a week. They would meet with each of the leaders one-on-one as well as in a group and they spent time (also one-on-one and in larger groups) with the rest of the members of the congregation as well, asking questions about their own spiritual growth, the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the church congregation and so on. In the end, after having spent a fair amount of time immersed in the matters of the church (both spiritual and worldly) they would give an evaluation of how the church was doing, areas where they could improve, where their strengths lie, etc. And when they gave their report, it wasn't in a business fashion in which ultimatums were handed down or numbers had been crunched. Instead it was a thoughtfully prepared evaluation written by a group of people who had built relationships with those they were evaluating. I'm sure it's not a perfect system, but what I love about it is that the people get to know each other. They talk over a period of time and everyone gets a say. And the conclusions are hopefully drawn up in love for the betterment of the congregation. 

Compare that to the system that we found at City Church, a member of the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA). There the pastor attended Presbytery meetings 3 or 4 times a year where he'd meet only with other pastors or elders from the other PCA churches in the region. They often have specific issues to discuss and make rulings on. Then they'd travel back home having never met with other members of any other congregations and therefore only hearing the news from other churches through the lens of the other leaders (if they spent any time talking about their congregations at all). Though City Church was a member of a denomination with a body of leadership that was ostensibly in charge of holding each church accountable to the directives in the Bible, that leadership generally only dealt with issues once they'd grown so large that they had to be dealt with. There was no system whereby help was brought in before an issue grew too large. And when decisions were dealt out, they were from a stand point of leaders ruling over either other leaders or other church members. They were not done in a context of relationship and the problems were rarely, if ever, dealt with when they were still small and manageable. If it wasn't explosive, it wasn't worth dealing with yet. 

The difference between the Sojourners model and the City Church model speaks volumes to me. I've been in many Bible Studies or Sunday School classes in which we've discussed the verses in Scripture that speak about holding each other accountable and almost always someone jumps in and quotes from Ephesians that you have to "speak the truth in love" and that means you have to know the person and have some sort of relationship with them before you can expect to be allowed into their life enough to also help them deal with their issues and struggles. (We only give paid counselors the right to tell us what to do without them first becoming our friends.) 

But when you talk about accountability on a congregational level, that relational stuff often seems to fly right out the window. Within our denomination, the leaders of the other congregations can step in and make judgement calls without having had built any sort of relationship with the members of the congregation before hand. In fact, in our current presbytery, getting together across congregations outside of official presbytery meetings seems to almost be taboo. At least, every attempt I've seen made to get this to happen is akin to pulling teeth and still getting minimal or no results. 

In the end I'm left wondering what the positives are after all to being in a church that's a member of a larger denomination. Sure, they'll whip us in to shape if we get out of line. But they're more than likely do it with harshness and lack of love because they don't have a clue who we are and why we've come to the place we're in. So if there's value in having a stick over our heads, then sure, there's value to being in the denomination. But if we're looking for outsiders who will come in and get to know us, and let us in to get to know them, and who will assent to holding us accountable to our goals and we to them, then we're certainly not going to find it in the PCA. From the presbyteries I've been in, this not only isn't a priority. It's not even on the radar. 

I wonder how many denominations have split into even more denominations because, rather than building relationships so as to have a context in which to discuss their differences, they have formed sides, fought battles, and eventually resorted to a denominational split rather than come to an agreement on whatever issue they're struggling with. What a shame! Jesus said that the world would know we are his disciples because we love one another and instead we lord it over one another, not only at a personal level but at a congregational level. 

Shame on us.