Tuesday 22 May 2007 at 10:07 pm
For me MP3s of sermons from the web are a tremendous blessing. I'm an auditory learner so I tend to retain more of what I hear than necessarily what I read. It is also easier to multi-talks with mp3s than it is with books for me. I can drive, exercise, rest, do mindless chores, etc. while listening. Here are some of the guys I'm listening to now. One of the things I'm learning is how individual this all is. Some people connect with one person, others with others. No disrespect to anyone. There are also seasons when one person helps me with one thing or another with another. It's also a matter of availability. I can't listen to what I don't have access to. Some websites make it convenient to download, others not so much. I also don't always agree with everything anyone on this list says of course, but I find them enjoyable, helpful, thought-provoking, useful. Anyway, on with the list:
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Tuesday 22 May 2007 at 9:30 pm
Links and notes to Boyd stuff that I've found helpful
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Tuesday 22 May 2007 at 8:28 pm
I’ve already mentioned the sermon by Greg Boyd "Leading with a Limp" or "Bottom Feeder Leaders". (First half of the sermon mostly) One of the things he said in that sermon which caught my attention, gave me pause and has continued to intrigue me was his take on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2 and 3.
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Monday 21 May 2007 at 10:09 pm
The struggle with WICO is of course only one part of the larger struggle of "ins and outs" for the church. All kinds of churches are struggling with these questions at various levels. Traditional and conservative churches who are more or less trying to remain through keeping their young attempt to "hold the line" regarding homosexuality, divorce, gender roles, WICO, pre-marital sex, out-of-wedlock cohabitation, etc. simply among those born into the tribe. Churches doing vigorous outreach have all of those issues plus others because the new folks coming in don't know "the rules" or "the standards". What does "membership" in church mean? What does leadership require? Some innovative churches are trying all sorts of other things, other words and ways to deal with the mess. Nothing I've seen anywhere seems to make it all clean, neat, simply and fine. I haven't seen a fix.
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Monday 21 May 2007 at 5:42 pm
One of my all time favorite this American life segments. http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=226 It is act 3 of the episode "Rerun" and it is worth listening to each time you'd like to make a "Rosa Parks" analogy. :) pvk
Thursday 17 May 2007 at 10:04 pm
This was a response to a discussion on CRC Voices
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Thursday 17 May 2007 at 1:00 pm
Good push back. Let me take a step back and paint some things I’ve been thinking about.
1. I think we all recognize that many of us have experienced the church at rest, but not in the "shalom" "land of rest" sort of way. An apathetic church, an unresponsive church, a church that is about it’s own comfort and needs and blind to the needs of the world. By God’s severe mercy it is now abundantly clear to most that such a church is soon a church that will rest in peace. "Missional" is the word we’re using to address that situation.
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Wednesday 16 May 2007 at 7:17 pm
This is a rant. You've been warned.
There was a time when I devoured "the times they are a changin" (hear Dillon with his whiny nasal twang) books. Could have even written one myself. Most of you know the routine.
1. The times they are a changin (as if I hadn't noticed)
2. The recipe for the new times (as if they will stand still long enough to write a book about) (as if we actually have enough distance, wisdom, perspective to diagnose today)
I haven't bought any of these books for a while, although sometimes people give them to me or I am obliged to read one for some group. Someone I respect said "the best book I've read in a decade" so I thought, "OK, worth the 12 bucks maybe". I'm not through the intro and I have that sinking feeling.
The point of the book is, of course, "In the time of the early church the gospel went viral. Today in China the gospel is going viral. Let's figure out what they are doing that we are not and do it too then the gospel will go viral here."
OK, but is it really about technique?
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Monday 14 May 2007 at 10:07 pm
Many times the things we identify as our problems are not really the source of our trouble at all. The WICO debate often strikes me this way.
Let’s imagine that one night before I went to sleep I prayed fervently that the LORD would send me a word to guide me in this dilemma. What if he gave me Mark 10:35-45 (This is the story of James and John asking for the chairs at the right and the left)? Now this is my little parable, but what would this text have to say to the WICO debate?
Where does our mental map of ministry come from? The same place as James and John. They came by it honestly and we do to. John 21:15-23 comes to mind as well as Acts 9:15-16. There is no doubt that the call to leadership in ministry is a privilege, but in the Bible it is almost always an enormously costly one and there usually isn’t a line to get in. Where is the line to suffer what the prophets and apostles suffered?
Now I know as well as anyone that to be a pastor in this time and place does not mean 2 Cor 11:23-29 . I have a nice home, good job security, a very pleasant middle class life really. As far as church leadership goes, I’m sure that my lot is above average on the American scale and well above average on the world scale. I don’t want to be ungrateful for this and I wish more had my level of comfort and security.
At the same time those who are barred from practicing ministry in the denominations or pulpits they desire I don’t think are really just looking for a job. Unemployment is low and they can find work doing other worthy things. I too could find support in other ways. What do I enjoy? Having the mike? Maybe my sin is more of a Matthew 23:1-12 sin?
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Tuesday 08 May 2007 at 5:18 pm
Saints, it's that simple.
Peter Kreeft in a number of his lectures on line makes this point over and over again and the more I reflect on it I think he's right.
Saints really are the salt of the earth. They are hidden all over the place doing quiet, simple things that allow this world to continue. They pray, they give, they encourage, they sacrifice, they forgive, they embrace. If not for them the world would implode.
What is even more alarming and also encouraging is that anyone can become a saint. There is no restrictive access to sainthood. There is no special expensive class to take. The path to sainthood does not require a context of wealth, peace or security, in fact saints will be produced in places where there is deprivation, suffering, chaos and panic. Troubles make saints stronger, purer and even more powerful in the quiet power that the world seldom recognizes.
To be a saint you don't need a degree, you don't need money, you don't need to be the brightest kid in the class, you don't need to know the right people or live in the right place. You just need to know God, begin to trust him and take up your cross.
Why don't many of us become saints? Because we avoid the pain and we all prefer comfort and security. Saints begin to value other things more than comfort and security and begin to regard pain and distress and light and momentary difficulties compared to what they increasingly see.
I thank God for his saints. pvk
Monday 07 May 2007 at 8:13 pm
The title's a bit off-putting but the sermon is great. :)
Jack Roeda: Church
of the Servant GR
The Interrogative
Mode: Acts 9:1-9
“Dear Friends of Jesus Christ”
1. Lectionary readings have this paired
with Jesus questioning Peter after the resurrection “Do you love me?”
a. The stories are so
wonderfully complementary and what they have in common.
i. In both
cases Jesus initiates the meeting with a question.
ii. Both Peter
and Paul respond to the question
iii. Both are
given a commission
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Friday 04 May 2007 at 5:46 pm
Bill Harris posted an Andrew Sullivan piece in his debate with Sam Harris. I then checked out the Wikipedia article on Sam Harris that I thought was helpful. I was also remembering an older piece by Andrew Sullivan that appeared in Time magazine that essentially advised that mixing religion with some skepticism was the solution to religious intolerance. Sullivan in that piece simply argues that since we know that to be human is to be fallible we should all chill when it comes to religious positions and the applications that we draw from them. We might be wrong about a good many things, therefore it is prudent to not decapitate those who disagree with you.
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Thursday 03 May 2007 at 9:49 pm
Jeremiah is noticed and read from an exilic perspective. It is the record of the ministry of the prophet Jeremiah. It is not written as some perfunctory log. It is not written simply to satisfy our curiosity as to what was happening on Jerusalem before the great calamity of the exile. It was written as a way of processing a disaster which had already taken place. It is important to read the book from that perspective.
For both those who were taken away to Babylon as well as those who remained in the ruins of Judah, there was much though and discussion given to the question "How could this have happened?" The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple and absorption of Judah into the Babylonian empire shook the children of Israel far deeper than 9/11 has done for Americans today simply because the impact was far more profound, extensive and long lasting. Israel’s very identity seemed shattered by the Babylonian conquest and exile.
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Wednesday 02 May 2007 at 9:42 pm
This is from Tim Keller's sermon The Man the King Delights to Honor : Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.
Also, "pride is the carbon monoxide of sin"
Wednesday 02 May 2007 at 11:46 am
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2007/2/Graff.asp
It also reminded me of the ways in which all speech is contextual both in terms of the author and the assumed audience. This is true of sermons, of news, of nearly every message sent by anyone. Many times we imagine that we are simply speaking to "all", generically, but we all do so with an implicit mental construct of our listener. Choice of language (if you know more than one) is usually the first selection. If you know you're addressing Spanish speakers if you've got any sense at all you try your Spanish. I watched the Amazing Race last night (TIVOed) with my kids and one woman who herself is an immigrant to the US always speaks with a strange accent to every non-English speaker (in English) she meets. It is very funny. On the last episode she explained herself that this supposedly (to her) helps them to understand. You'd have to ask the one's she's speaking to.
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