Guy has done a great job of taking pictures of our once-a-month worship gathering called Element, so I thought I would post some here.
He really took some great shots and captured the vibe of the evening!
You can see the rest of the pictures here.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Pictures Of Element November 2006
Guy has done a great job of taking pictures of our once-a-month worship gathering called Element, so I thought I would post some here.
He really took some great shots and captured the vibe of the evening!
You can see the rest of the pictures here.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Sufjan Stevens: Put The Lights On The Tree
There's nothing like a little Sufjan Stevens Christmas music to get me fired up for the holidays. You can get some of his Christmas Cds for free, I can't remember where I got them, I'll have to remember. He is also releasing a box-set of all of his Christmas songs - familiar and original. I highly recommend them if you're a Sufjan fan or if you like quirky banjo-driven Christmas carols.
Enjoy this video from Sufjan's record company (which he owns), an ode to Christmas in an o so cartoonish way.
There's nothing like a little Sufjan Stevens Christmas music to get me fired up for the holidays. You can get some of his Christmas Cds for free, I can't remember where I got them, I'll have to remember. He is also releasing a box-set of all of his Christmas songs - familiar and original. I highly recommend them if you're a Sufjan fan or if you like quirky banjo-driven Christmas carols.
Enjoy this video from Sufjan's record company (which he owns), an ode to Christmas in an o so cartoonish way.
Monday, November 06, 2006
The Present Future by Reggie McNeal
I have started reading The Present Future: Six Tough Questions For The Church again, and the more I read, the more I am firmly convinced that this is the one book that must be read in order to understand where the Church needs to change and what its values and mission must be in order to reach not only the emerging generations, but all generations. If these six tough questions are not addressed by the church, not only will the church become even more and more marginalized to the outskirts of society in the coming years, but I believe that the church will die in America.
My next several posts will be dissecting what is written in this book. I would encourage any of you who read this blog to pick up this book. It will definitely shake your pre-conceived ideas of what the church should be about to the very core.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Element - Seed (November 2006)
I have not done a very good job of promoting Element on my blog - in fact, I haven't really promoted it at all. So I bring you a promo video.
Element is a worship gathering that I help lead one Sunday night a month. We've been doing it since this summer, and each worship gathering has been completely different.
I have a special place in my heart and faith for the persecuted church. I think it goes back to when I was in college and we would have missionaries come and speak to us from countries that persecuted Christians. I was amazed at the faith of these godly men and women and wondered often if America became a country that persecuted Christians, how many of us would stay a Christian?
Anyway, this month's Element is one I'm especially looking forward to, because we are having a special time of worship and prayer for the persecuted church. Hopefully, by the time we are done on Sunday, everyone will have experienced a little of what it is like to be a persecuted Christian, and will be moved to action; whether it be simply praying for the persecuted church, financially supporting a ministry that helps the persecuted church, or getting their hands dirty and getting involved directly with the persecuted church.
Element
7:00 p.m.
The Garage 1919
"The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church." Tertullian, 300 A.D.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
An Important Service Announcement Concerning The Body Of Christ
Boy, would I love to show this on Sunday morning to remind everyone of why it's important to come in on time to our worship services, but I doubt it would be approved.
I guess I'll have to keep thinking of ways to get people to "church on time".
I guess I'll have to keep thinking of ways to get people to "church on time".
A Letter To God From Philip Yancey
Philip Yancey is one of my favorite authors - books like What's So Amazing About Grace?, The Jesus I Never Knew, Where Is God When It Hurts, and others have been faithful companions to me over the years, and I find myself returning to Yancey again and again.
At the beginning of his book Reaching For The Invisible God, Yancey talks about an exercise that a discussion group he was a part of did. They decided that they would each write an open letter to God and read them to each other the next time they met. The following is Yancey's letter:
Dear God,
"You sure don't act as if God is alive" - that's the accusation one of Pattie's friends made to her, and it has haunted me ever since, as a question: Do I act as if you are alive?
Sometimes I treat you as a substance, a narcotic like alcohol or Valium, when I need a fix, to smooth over the harshness of reality, or to take it away. I can sometimes ease off from this world into an awareness of an invisible world; and most of the time I truly believe it exists, as real as this world of oxygen and grass and water. But how do I do the reverse, to let the reality of your world - of you - enter in and transform the numbing sameness of my daily life, and my daily self?
I see progress, I admit. I see you now as someone I respect, even reverence, rather than fear. Now your mercy and grace impress me more than your holiness and awe. Jesus has done that for me, I suppose. He has tamed you, at least enough so that we can live together in the same cage without me cowering in the corner all the time. He has made you appealing, love-able. And I tell myself he has made me appealing and love-able to you as well. That's not something I could ever come up with on my own; I have to take your word for it. Much of the time, I hardly believe it.
So how do I act as if you're alive? How do the cells of my body, the same ones that sweat and urinate and get depressed and toss and turn in bed at night - how do these cells carry around the splender of the God of the universe in a way that leaks out for others to notice? How do I love even one person with the love you came to bring?
Occasionally I get caught up in your world, and love you, and I've learned to cope OK in this world, but how do I bring the two together? That's my prayer, I guess: to believe in the possibility of change. Living inside myself, change is hard to observe. So often it seems like learned behavior, like adaptations to an environment, as the scientists say. How do I let you change me in my essence, in my nature, to make me more like you? Or is that even possible?
Funny, I find it easier to believe in the impossible - to believe in the parting of the Red Sea, to believe in Easter - than to believe in what should seem more possible: the slow steady dawning of your life in people like me and Janet and Dave and Mary and Bruce and Kerry and Janice and Paul. Help me to believe in the possible, God.
----
Once again, Yancey puts into better words than I could ever come up with, exactly what I'm thinking about right now.
At the beginning of his book Reaching For The Invisible God, Yancey talks about an exercise that a discussion group he was a part of did. They decided that they would each write an open letter to God and read them to each other the next time they met. The following is Yancey's letter:
Dear God,
"You sure don't act as if God is alive" - that's the accusation one of Pattie's friends made to her, and it has haunted me ever since, as a question: Do I act as if you are alive?
Sometimes I treat you as a substance, a narcotic like alcohol or Valium, when I need a fix, to smooth over the harshness of reality, or to take it away. I can sometimes ease off from this world into an awareness of an invisible world; and most of the time I truly believe it exists, as real as this world of oxygen and grass and water. But how do I do the reverse, to let the reality of your world - of you - enter in and transform the numbing sameness of my daily life, and my daily self?
I see progress, I admit. I see you now as someone I respect, even reverence, rather than fear. Now your mercy and grace impress me more than your holiness and awe. Jesus has done that for me, I suppose. He has tamed you, at least enough so that we can live together in the same cage without me cowering in the corner all the time. He has made you appealing, love-able. And I tell myself he has made me appealing and love-able to you as well. That's not something I could ever come up with on my own; I have to take your word for it. Much of the time, I hardly believe it.
So how do I act as if you're alive? How do the cells of my body, the same ones that sweat and urinate and get depressed and toss and turn in bed at night - how do these cells carry around the splender of the God of the universe in a way that leaks out for others to notice? How do I love even one person with the love you came to bring?
Occasionally I get caught up in your world, and love you, and I've learned to cope OK in this world, but how do I bring the two together? That's my prayer, I guess: to believe in the possibility of change. Living inside myself, change is hard to observe. So often it seems like learned behavior, like adaptations to an environment, as the scientists say. How do I let you change me in my essence, in my nature, to make me more like you? Or is that even possible?
Funny, I find it easier to believe in the impossible - to believe in the parting of the Red Sea, to believe in Easter - than to believe in what should seem more possible: the slow steady dawning of your life in people like me and Janet and Dave and Mary and Bruce and Kerry and Janice and Paul. Help me to believe in the possible, God.
----
Once again, Yancey puts into better words than I could ever come up with, exactly what I'm thinking about right now.
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