From the Standard

Came across a piece from the Christian Standard on "Small Church Stereotypes" and thought this was interesting:
Small Churches Live in the Past
     This is often true. Some older members are glad to tell you about the three-week revival in 1963 when the building was so full that people were looking in through the windows. They'll also praise the nearly perfect preacher who was adored in the early 1980's.
     Not every smaller congregation has been around for lots of years, but many of them have. Older, smaller churches often commit systematic, congregational suicide by going to one of two extremes. They either back into the future while looking into the past (and then lament the fact that no young people are around anymore), or they show blatant disregard for time-honored ministries and traditions in a misguided attempt to bring relevance and instant growth.
     Balance is critical, so small churches need to celebrate past victories, recognize years of faithful leadership, and rejoice over life-changing moments that have occurred. Churches can learn from these things, while moving forward with exciting dreams and timely, well-explained changes.
     An old Russian proverb says, "Dwell in the past and you'll lose an eye. Forget the past and you'll lose both eyes." Churches need to honor the past without dwelling there.

As a small-church pastor, I can attest to the importance (and difficulty) of striking that balance.

Wendell Berry being Wendell Berry

Here's a link to the 2012 National Endowment of the Humanities Jefferson Lecture, delivered by a man whose voice has long demanded to be heard, Wendell Berry:
http://www.neh.gov/about/awards/jefferson-lecture/wendell-e-berry-lecture

Top of the food chain, indeed

This from Norman Wirzba's excellent Food & Faith: A Theology of Eating:
"Though everything that lives eats, we are the ones privileged to garden, feast, and be hospitable. We are the ones who can give voice to gratitude and develop eating practices reflective of faith, hope, and love."

NT Wright on the resurrection body

"Dust we are, and to dust we shall return. But God can do new things with dust."
         ----Surprised by Hope, 158

Love that, both for its concise elegance and its commitment to the power of God.

The Psalmist at Harvest Time

This delightfully agrarian reflection from Psalm 65:

9 You visit the earth and water it;[b]
    you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
     you provide their grain,
    for so you have prepared it.
10 You water its furrows abundantly,
    settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
    and blessing its growth.
11 You crown the year with your bounty;
    your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
12  The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
    the hills gird themselves with joy,
13  the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
    the valleys deck themselves with grain,
    they shout and sing together for joy.

Chesterton and Aquinas

Reading Chesterton's biography of "The Dumb Ox". There is (as is always the case with Chesterton) such a wealth of wit and insight here, that Aquinas' quote, as related by Chesterton, seems appropriate:
     "When asked for what he thanked God most, he answered simply, 'I have understood every page I ever read.'"

Were I Aquinas, it would be enough to say I have understood every page I have ever written. But that was probably far too modest a goal for such a prodigious mind.

A Truly Astonishing Observation

This from Eugene Peterson's The Pastor:

"Pastor John of Patmos knew his Bible inside and out. The Revelation has 404 verses. In those 404 verses, there are 518 references to earlier scripture. But there is not a single quote; all the references are allusions. Here was a pastor and writer who was absolutely immersed in scripture and submitted himself to it. He did not merely repeat, regurgitate, proof-text. As he wrote, the scriptures were re-created in him. He assimilated scripture. Lived scripture. And then he wrote what he has lived....I wrote an article on Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I recognized it as a tour de force of spiritual theology. I made the comment in my article that there was hardly a page in the book that didn't have an allusion to the Bible, yet there was not a single quote...She wrote to me,"I have been treated very generously by my reviewers. But nobody has ever noticed that the book is saturated in scripture. I wondered if anyone ever would. Thank you for noticing.'"

The Ten Plagues, as Rendered by the Psalmist and Wycliffe

This from Psalm 78:43-52

As he setted his signs in Egypt; and his great wonders in the field of Tanis.
And he turned the floods of them, and the rains of them, into blood; that they should not drink.
He sent a flesh fly into them, and it ate them; and he sent a paddock, and it lost them.
And he gave the fruits of them to rust; and he gave the travails of them to locusts.                            
And he killed the vines of them with hail; and the (syca)more trees of them with frost.
And he betook the beasts of them (un)to hail; and the possession(s) of them (un)to fire.
He sent into them the ire of his indignation; indignation, and ire, and tribulation, sendings-in by evil angels.
He made (a) way to the path of his ire, and he spared not from the death of their lives; and he closed together in death the beasts of them.
And he smote all the first engendered thing(s) in the land of Egypt [And he smote all the first begotten in the land of Egypt]; the first fruits of all the travail of them in the tabernacles of Ham.
And he took away his people as sheep; and he led them forth as a flock in desert.

Ash Wednesday

Here's a great couple of posts from Daniel Montgomery, pastor of Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, about why churches should celebrate Ash Wednesday and observe Lent. Some good insight on a day and a calendar period that many Christians still view with suspicion.

http://daniel-montgomery-sojourn.com/5-reasons-you-should-observe-ash-wednesday/

http://daniel-montgomery-sojourn.com/how-we-do-ash-wednesday-at-sojourn/

Merton on "movements"

"All movements fill me with suspicion and lassitude. But I enjoy talking to people (except about movements). I think the best thing is to belong to a universal anti-movement underground."
     ---Thomas Merton, in a letter written to Walker Percy, 1967

Wycliffe Crushing it Again

This from Psalm 46:4-5:

"The fierceness of the flood maketh glad the city of God; the highest God hath hallowed his tabernacle.
God in the midst thereof shall not be moved; God shall help it early in the gray morrowtide."

Pretty great stuff, for a "heretic".

"But not this time..."

"Usually, I think the Church's motto is The Wrong Man For the Job, but not this time."
      --Flannery O'Connor, in a letter to Elizabeth Hester, commenting on O'Connor's meeting the Archbishop of Atlanta.

A modest, but at the same time worthy, standard for any pastor to live up to.

The World of World

 Bow thou away from evil, and do good; and dwell thou into the world of world.
--Psalm 37:27, Wycliffe version


Reading my Psalms today from a different translation; the verse above touched me as a particularly beautiful way of expressing something: "dwell thou into the world of world." The journey of faith and its culmination.

"The only real city in America"

Reading Paul Elie's The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage. It's an exploration of the lives and work of Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Walker Percy, and Flannery O'Connor. It's been on my shelf for far too long, and I'm thankful I finally decided to crack it open. Here, Elie describes Merton's first visit to Gethsemani, for a Holy Week retreat in 1941:
     "He had arrived at two a.m., gone to sleep, and risen at four to find the monks already down in the church praying the Divine Office. As a layperson, he was restricted to the visitors' gallery in the rear of the church, and from there he watched the long, slow ritual of monastic worship--the sea of white woolen cowls, the chant seeming to rise toward the stained glass.
     'This is the only real city in America--in a desert. It is the axle around which the whole country   blindly turns...'
     The monks had scattered to the separate aspects of the monastic day: private prayer, study in theology, work in the barns and fields surrounding the monastery, a meal of bread and cheese taken in silence at long tables, and at last the night office, followed by lights out.
     Now, with the monks asleep, Merton sat awake, writing.
     'What right do I have to be here?'"

It's Groundhog Day!

Check out this article from a few years back by Michael P. Foley on the theological and philosophical nuggets that perceptive viewers can mine from the classic 1993 Billy Murray film that celebrates everyone's favorite weather-forecasting rodent and the day that bears his name. If you haven't seen the movie, track down a copy and treat yourself.

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=17-03-012-v

Great stuff from a great church

This Christianity Today article, by Chris Smith of Englewood Christian Church in Indianapolis, highlights some of the exciting things that have been happening over the past couple of decades, due to the fact that Christians at Englewood simply decided to start taking the word of God seriously. This is inspirational for any church community (like my own) that wants to change the world for the kingdom of God but is wondering where to start. Start by talking, and let your actions flow out of sustained, prayerful conversation. Thanks, Chris.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/thisisourcity/7thcity/talktoyourneighbors.html?paging=off

Read this Letter

http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Letter_Birmingham_Jail.pdf

One of the most important documents that Christian faith in the 20th century produced. One of the most powerful demonstrations of the idea that a life of prayer and a life of action can be and should be inextricably intertwined.

On the Craziness that is Tebow

Here are just a couple of the (many) articles written about Tim Tebow in the wake of the stunning OT victory over the Steelers last night. One of my frustrations has been the way that Tebowmania has given way to bad theology (on both sides of the debate). The posts on Slate have been particularly egregious in this regard, while this latest, from Josh Levin, is entertaining for the almost palpable level of passive-aggressive disdain for Tebow that the author exhibits. The posts/comments I've enjoyed the most have come from those who don't seem to come down on one side or the other regarding Tebow's religious beliefs, but see them as one piece of the amazing story that's unfolded in Denver over the past couple of months, a story capped off (for now) with an 80-yard touchdown straight out of a movie script. Grantland has been admirable on this front, and the piece by Bill Barnwell stands as an example of analysis not clouded by dogmatic allegiance to either of the two extreme perspectives on the phenomenon of Tebow. For good measure, I'll also throw in Chuck Klosterman's earlier piece, which I really enjoyed, on the polarizing effect that Tebow was having in those early days of the winning streak, before the Broncos crash-landed, backed into the playoffs, and then stunned everyone in the first round. Enjoy.

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/features/2011/nfl_2011/wild_card/tim_tebow_playoffs_why_the_steelers_lost_to_tebow_and_the_broncos_.html

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7441363/bill-barnwell-breaks-tim-tebow-epic-game-coaching-woes-atlanta

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7319858/the-people-hate-tim-tebow

An Invitation

First, I'll preface this by saying that I know there are countless blogs out there already. I am exceedingly late to the party, as I often am when it comes to technology. I also know that there is an overwhelming abundance of information available on the internet, and a glut of voices competing for attention. I am self-aware enough to understand that I will not be doing anything earth-shattering or world-changing in this space. I am simply a Christian, a pastor, an occasional teacher and a sporadic writer who has decided to join the masses who have used the internet to share their thoughts and to initiate conversation about what is important to them. My hope is that this blog will bring new conversation partners into my life and initiate new friendships while at the same time reinvigorating old ones. My main practice here will be to post reflections on things that I'm reading, and to ask my readers (if there are any) what they think. I have been fortunate to be influenced by a number of strong, mature, and wise individuals and communities that have spurred me on to the kind of growth God desires for me and the kind of allegiance that God's kingdom demands. Without sustained discussion, I'm not sure where I'd be; this blog is, more than anything, an attempt to open myself up to more and better discussion with people whose interests and concerns intersect with my own, without necessarily mirroring them. So, as I begin this adventure, I want to invite friends, neighbors, and strangers to join me.
Grace and Peace,
Todd