Presby-Musings

T his is a picture of James and I that was taken by my wife. She insisted on taking it. We are standing in the library of my 125 year-old church--a library that also doubles as a huge reception/fellowship space. When this picture was taken, my church had just held its annual Christmas concert, which is only the biggest event of our entire year. We had over 530 gaily dressed folk at the concert, which was a record, apparently. There was a huge reception after the concert with four long tables filled with food, cookies, pastries, goodies, punch, eggnog and other assorted holiday fare.   James had been standing outside the library door, afraid to come inside and wanting to talk to me. Quite a few folks ignored him or walked around him until someone came inside and told me he wanted to see me. Here's the thing, James is a homeless man, who lives on the screened-in porch next to my office. The reason he is living on my office porch is complicated and almost entirely Mark's fault....

Tonight my wife and I had dinner with her cousins Mark and Alisa Langley, who are two 40-something former Registered Nurses who gave up a nice life here in the United States and moved to Thailand to live in intentional community with the Thai people.  Their organization provides scholarships for about 16 Thai teenagers to attend school, live and work together in community with Mark, Alisa, their two children, and their mission partners.   They embrace the outcasts in Thai society---tribal hill people, those who are infected with HIV, the poor---as an outpouring of their Christian love.  There's no door to door evangelism here, no huge healing services with loud, boisterous, hellfire and brimstone preachers.  Just simple people living among the world's poor, demonstrating the kingdom of God.   Their ministry to those who are infected with HIV is incredibly moving.  In Thai culture, misfortune is heaped upon those who are wicked or inherently bad.  If you are infected with HIV...

Recently, I've had a few friends who have expressed their curiosity over my use of the term "emerging" or "emergent church" so often in my writings.  I've also been approached by a few colleagues--pastors, for the most part---who have asked me for some pointers on starting an "emergent" worship service at their churches.  In both cases, there was a need for a wider explanation about the emergent church conversation that has been taking place for quite some time now, and in both cases I found I had to sit and think a bit before forming an answer.   This is more of my sitting, thinking, I suppose.  But maybe there will be some answers in here, too.   Several years ago--almost ten, I guess---I was given a book called "The Continuing Conversion of the Church" by Darell Gruder from Princeton Theological Seminary.  That book started me thinking about what it meant for the Church to become more missional than preservationist in its theology a...

Okay, If you are wondering why I am starting with a Pt. 2... Just so you are aware, Pt. 1 to this little essay can be found HERE .  I am currently working on a sermon series that explores the Great Ends of the Church.  You can listen to these sermons online .   Here's something that I have found to be true... Fear and anxiety are at the heart of every controversy, division or argument that has occurred and will occur within the Church, the Body of Christ.  Seriously, scratch the surface of every schism and you will find a fearful and anxious people seeking to find meaning and stability in the only way they seem to know how to find it...  by fighting.  So when one of the elders in my former church began fomenting division within the congregation by complaining about our plans to take a small intergenerational group from the church on a mission trip to Mexico, I should have realized more clearly what was happening.  But I didn't.  Instead I took it personally, and got mad.  Hones...