Annoyed

Ok. So this is a bit of a “culture rant.” I haven’t ranted in a while, so now seemed as good a time as any. This will be a little stream-of-conscious.

I saw Miley Cyrus on an internet clip that was reporting on her bare-backed expose for Vanity Fair. [Side note: it also made the point that photographer Annie Leibovitz, the extremely talented photographer doing the photo shoot for Vanity Fair, is a lesbian. Well, DUH! No offense, but have you seen Annie Leibovitz? Men naturally flee her presence.] Anyway, little Hannah Montana was shown posing for the paparazzi at some public event, a camera flash going off every millisecond, and Billy Ray was standing around in the background as his fifteen-year-old daughter was being exploited for profit. Someone should have slapped his achy breaky skull. Word to Billy Ray: you’re sending your daughter down the path of future freakdom. You said you would protect her from that. You appear to be failing.

On a related note, I live in shame knowing that I can sing the theme song for the Hannah Montana show. I can name her TV brother and all of her TV friends. This should not be. I’m almost fourty-freakin’-three years old. Why can I sing a song performed by a fifteen-year-old? Any fifteen-year-old?

While I’m on the subject of the Disney Channel (one of two channels our TV seems to be tuned in to regularly), let me say that I hate the Naked Brothers Band. I’m sorry, but those boys have no talent. Well, apparently they have enough talent for the Nickalodeon people to put on their TV station. But in a day and age when television executives will produce a show where grown adults get outsmarted by average fifth graders, where Howie Mandel can host his own ridiculous show, and where Joanie Loves Chachi I suppose one more mind-numbing show is only to be expected.

I hate it that I, a grown man, actually know who Miranda Cosgrove is. And who Drake and Josh are.

I’m getting old. Maybe I’m already there. I hate the vacuous music of today. Pop. Hip-Hop. Country. Has it always been so absolutely void of anything meaningful to say? Has the musical talent always been this poor? Have you actually listened to a song by Britney Spears or Ashley Simpson? Or how about this. These are (some of) the lyrics to the number one song on the Top 40 chart right now. It is compellingly titled: Lollipop and it is performed by the legendary Lil Wayne (whoever the heck that is): Read more

R. L. Burnside: The Blues

Heaven, I’m In Heaven

Very interesting discussion in our Bible study yesterday about “the eternal state.”

Thanks to Steve Walker for the N. T. Wright links. Another good resource I used was Wright’s Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship. The last two chapters are especially good regarding this subject, chapter 11, Heaven and Power and chapter 12, New Life - New World.

Here are some of the topics we discussed:

• Is heaven our final destination? (If it is, then what does Hebrews 11:39-40 mean when it says that “apart from us they (OT saints) should not be made perfect?”) [emphasis mine] What is it about us that they were waiting on (notice that it doesn’t say that apart from Christ they should not be made perfect). What is it that we will experience together and when will that take place?
• In 1 Corinthians 15 why is the apostle Paul so obsessed not only with Jesus’ resurrection, but with ours as well? If we go to heaven when we die, and we live there in a disembodied state, what does it matter if we are resurrected or not? Do we need these resurrected bodies to enjoy God more? What’s the purpose of having them back?
• What does it mean in 2 Timothy 2:12 when the apostle Paul says that “we will reign with him?” What does it mean in Revelation 5:10 when the apostle John says the same thing, but adds that “they shall reign on the earth?”
• When the apostle John describes the new heaven and new earth in Revelation 21, why does he describe it not as our going up to be with God, but God’s coming down to be with us? What does that say about eternity? The world?

The reason we were asking those questions is this: in Hebrews 11 the writer lists these great people of faith who were commended by God and concludes that none of them “received what was promised.” He describes a hopeful faith, but what is it they were hoping for? Whatever it was must have been powerful because many of them endured horrible suffering and none of them lived to see the fulfillment of God’s promises to them. It seems that whatever it was had something to do with that phrase in v. 40 - that “apart from us they should not be made perfect.” What was that? Whatever it was, it would certainly do us well to see what gave them such hope so that in sharing that hope we might also share in their faith/faithfulness.

But often modern visions of heaven are not inspiring. Read more

Missional Leadership

Alan Roxburg has written a paper on Missional Leadership that’s being posted in several installments on the Allelon website.

Part One is already up.  If you’re a fan of John Maxwell and the like then you need to check out Roxburg’s paper.  In it he challenges prevailing church leadership models that are based on business or social models and even the “fourfold ministry” approach that many gather from Ephesians 4.

Leadership, says Roxburg, is not something based upon timeless principles or certain character qualities.  Instead it is oriented toward particular spaces and contexts.  His main thesis is:

The primary work of leadership is to continually stand in the place (space) where it is compelled to ask the question of what God is about among this group of people who comprise this local church in this specific context at this particular time.

Leadership is theological, as it is always asking what God is doing in the world.  It is also always contextual - for a given place and time.  According to Roxburg, the “space” that Christian leadership takes is “the space in between.”  Christian leadership is neither married to the world, as it was in Christendom, nor is it relegated to the private spiritual life (as opposed to the public secular life).  Instead, it is Incarnational and priestly.  The church exists in the world to stand in between God and an estranged world to draw them together.  As Jesus entered the world, fully Divine, yet participating fully in our humanity, so the church now exists as the body of Christ - participating in the Divine, yet still identifying with the humanity of the world.

Thus, Christian leadership is not simply about leading in the church (creating church programs, leading church choirs, leading youth group activities) but is about leading the church into the world.  It is about being a kingdom of priests in your own local context.

He closes with this:

If this is the description of leadership, it is important, right at the beginning, to understand why leadership in the church is almost universally interpreted and practiced as that which takes place in the inner space of church rather than the space in-between. Why was this tension, present in the creation stories and the
Incarnation, dissolved into an understanding of leadership as that which takes place in and for the church?

I suspect he’ll begin to answer those questions in Part Two.  Check out the paper (Part One is seven pages), and let me know what you think.

Life After Life After Death

That’s a phrase coined, I believe, by N. T. Wright. As I understand it he is referring to what life will be like in eternity.

I’ve been teaching through Hebrews and the writer/preacher of Hebrews shapes his message about faith in chapter eleven around a hopeful future. Those examples of faith believed God even when they did not live to see God’s promises fulfilled in their day. Their faith was a hopeful faith based on a vision of a world/kingdom that God would bring into being.

But if we are to live out that same sort of hopeful faith I believe we need a hopeful vision of the world/kingdom that God will bring into being as well, and that brings us to thoughts of heaven. But what is heaven like? What will life be like at the end of the age when God defeats the last enemy and becomes all in all?

John Eldredge writes about our (mis)conceptions of heaven as an “everlasting sing-along.” Is that what we have to look forward to? Will angels be playing harps to Fanny Crosby hymns? What exactly is life after life after death going to be like?

That is a question that we will be discussing in our Bible study this coming Sunday. What are your ideas? How would you respond to the question: “What will eternity be like?”

Spiritual Lessons - Learning The Hard Way

Several months ago I was having a conversation with a man who has been in church and in church leadership most of his life. He’s been a prominent figure in his church. We were discussing one of the specific teachings of Jesus. It was one of those passages that I imagine he’s taught from at church at some time in the past. Toward the end of the conversation he said these words that took me by surprise: “Sometimes that just doesn’t work in real life.”

Now, it didn’t really surprise me that he said that. To be honest I think a lot of people in church think those very thoughts about some of the difficult teachings of Scripture on a regular basis. Love your enemy? Turn the other cheek? If your enemy is hungry give him something to eat, if he’s thirsty give him something to drink. They sound good in Sunday School, but not so much at home, at work, in Wal-Mart or anywhere else we might call “real life.” That’s really no surprise. What surprised me is that he admitted it publicly. Read more

Aw, Hail

My van got hit pretty hard by a hail storm we had a few weeks ago and it seems like I’m not the only one. My insurance will pay for a rental car, but the Enterprise lot down the street is completely out of cars. They said they’d have something by this afternoon, but here I am, waiting by the phone. Maybe this is just practice for how I’ll get along without a vehicle as gas prices continue to move way outside my comfort zone.

This Week on Shapevine

Man, o man, is this ever a good week to tune in to Shapevine.com. Tonight (April 21st) at 6 PM CST you can catch Sally Morgenthaler. Tomorrow afternoon (April 22nd) at 3 PM CST you can have an online convo with Len Sweet who will be talking to Peter Rollins.

[Funny side story: Last summer I was flying to San Antonio to the Southern Baptist Convention and on the plane I was reading Peter Rollins’ How (Not) To Speak Of God. I noticed that the guy sitting next to me kept glancing over at what I was reading. He introduced himself as Danny Forshee and we had a nice conversation. Then he leaned up not-so-quietly to talk to the guy sitting in front of him (who he obviously knew) and proceeded to tell him that I was emergent <GASP!!>. I got a kick out of that.]

Anyway, if you want to get your emergent on, or if you want to be a part of some interesting conversations (you can even ask questions), check out Shapevine this week.

Spanish Love Song

HT: Adam Feldman

It’s Not About Me

Ok. So yesterday I got a very stark reminder that corporate worship is not about us and not about me.

I’ve told the folks in our church that we shouldn’t get too uptight about worship styles as long as God is honored. Well, I had to put that theory to the test yesterday as we had the Continental Singers in concert.

What can go wrong in a concert, right? I mean, a group of young people get up and sing. The worst thing that can happen is that the songs are a little too peppy for the normal Baptist. Maybe they rock a little bit. Or maybe they’re just not very good. You say, “Amen” and move on.

Or, they dance. In a Baptist church. Yes. They could do that. Read more

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