Entries Tagged 'My Life' ↓

I’m taking a crash course in Greek this semester so I’ll likely have next to no time to post. I’m just giving fair warning. Peace.

The previous post expressed some pent-up frustration that felt really good to let out (wonderful, actually) and helped me decide that this blog should be more than a vent, it should be a locus for my interests.

The focus of this blog will move towards bringing to light many of the lost writings of German Pietism, especially those relating to Halle and Herrnhut. I have deep emotional ties to both the Moravian and Lutheran traditions, and have found these writings to be of immense help to me, and plan to focus my academic career around developing a greater understanding of them. It is my hope to bring many lost gems into the postmodern awareness, bringing forth a personal reality of a risen, living, and eternal God in those who read them.

I feel that there is a lot of attention being paid to the great reformed tradition of England, Scotland and Wales, but the Northern European writings of the same era have not received much consideration at all. Part of the problem has been that they exist almost exclusively in the “scholarly” realm, a place removed and inaccessible to the hungry Pilgrim (who wants stale bread when you can have a fresh biscuit with jam from such wonderful and gifted contemporaries such as John Piper, Mark Dever, Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller as well as scores of others - in addition to the volumes of devotional material reprinted from the Puritan and later Reformed movement.) My hope is to provide a truly pastoral sharing of these works, with my heart inclined to well-being of the reader and not just the historicity of the writings.

Why the long title?

Well, for the most part it is because I’m trapped. I’m without the spiritual elders of earlier years, and without their wisdom I’m flailing around searching for a rock. All the while knowing that the rock is ultimately Christ, my hope, and I’m trusting in it, but I’m nervous about all the details.

To start at the beginning, for my first sixteen years of life I was an atheist, raised by agnostics, knowing little of the church (I was quite happy that way.) I was baptized as a baby at an Episcopal church, the denomination of my father, but never really knew anything except the Lord’s prayer. We recited it as a family before bed until I was about 4, but something happened and it simply stopped. All religious “truth” was set aside in a rush of self-driven intellectualism, the real God of my home.

I converted thanks to the work of the Spirit and the well-spoken words of Mennonite friends who introduced me to a life of Christ that was holistic, real, and working to redeem values and people to a “Truth” that wasn’t being handed to them from a source outside the Bible. I needed a local church, and being in the part of Pennsylvania I was in, it happened to be a Lutheran church. I had no particular ties to the church at first, but I began to read the words of Luther and was inspired by the fire and passion in his words. I stayed with the Lutheran church for the few years before college, gleaning what I could from the theological scraps from preaching and feasting on the words of Luther.

At college in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania I was introduced to the Moravians, and quickly became one, singing at Central Moravian for three years before becoming a member of Edgeboro Moravian. I loved their traditions, their history, their words and daily practicality. Zinzendorf placed a heart-driven passion at the center of my theological world (herztheologie) and he continues to be the main influence on my theological direction (much to the chagrin of my more puritan-style reformed friends.) I met my wife around this time and often attended two church services every Sunday, one at the Moravian church I was a member of and one at the church she had grown up in, a highly charismatic world of flags, praise guitars, and prophetic words. Although I never felt at home here, they did show me something amazing about the fact that the expression of faith can be emotive and celebratory, it is OK to jump up and down in worship (they did it on Palm Sunday, of that I am sure, if ever there was a rock-styled event in the Gospels, it was then.)

Time to step aside for a moment to address the “calling of Christ” in my life. Early on, maybe a year after conversion, I was leading an emotional friend through the Lord’s prayer, she wanted to leave the church, she hated the hypocrisy and the lies. In bringing her through this she was brought to tears, I could sense the tension of faith and self that I often find in my own heart. As I got off the phone I felt overwhelmed, I broke into tears, I knew that this is what I was called to. I was called to speaking the Gospel’s truth into people’s lives. I was scared, excited, and firmly convinced that I had a direct experience, hearing God’s say, “This is your calling, now GO and follow it.” As I progressed through college, helping to lead worship, and as an elder of the campus fellowship, I began to pursue candidacy in the Moravian church. I eventually found myself at odds with some of the extra-scriptural elements slinking in at the edges. I decided not to complete my final candidacy paperwork and took a job in Virginia, far away from the Moravians and all the craziness that made me sick to my heart and stomach. For two years in Virginia I helped lead worship at a small Baptist church, living and loving in an urban context quite unlike the part of Pennsylvania I grew up in. After two years in Virginia we moved to Massachusetts when my wife took a job at a small Christian college, a college near the seminary that appealed to me the most, Gordon-Conwell.

We’ve worked at paying off all our debts and now I stand on the precipice of Seminary, without official denominational backing, although I am attending a Lutheran church that is a member of LCMC.

I’m scared to death - I don’t fit in any molds that I’ve met.

I have love for all those folks I’ve met:
Charismatic: for their unrestrained passion to experience God in worship
Evangelical: the Word must be proclaimed, there’s no getting away with whitewashing Christ’s truth for the world
Lutheran: the fire of the Spirit changes not just your actions, but brings you to repentance and the grace of God
Anglican: God is Holy, and the mind is a tool, not just something to be avoided or turned off
Baptist: your life is a reflection of Christ, the little things do make a difference
Mennonite: we are strangers in a strange land, we can’t just agree with the “powers” of this world and forsake the truth
Moravian: this world is our ministry field, we can’t avoid it, but we can bring light to places of darkness

Sure, there are parts where I disagree (For example I can’t bring myself to have a second baptism, both on grounds of the Nicene creed and on a covenantal belief in the nature of the baptism itself), but ultimately I just want to find a church home. One that holds to truth, but seeks out an holistic expression of it, a world-changing expression of it, and a hope in the life of the world to come. Any ideas where this seminarian can find a place to lay his head?

Dobson says “no” to Giuliani - Thanks to Mere Comments for starting this thought train! The positions of this coming presidential election’s Republican candidates (pro-torture or pro-abortion) shows something that I hope will wake Christians out of their blanket support for the Republican party into a Christ-centered politic that never will fit into Rome’s little boxes. In the words of Derek Webb’s song, A Love That’s Stronger Than Our Fear:

 if you were pushed that way
to betray yourself to keep yourself alive
is life worth so much?

False Teachers - A great find from Old Truth.com.

I confess the hypocrite may act his part so well that he may accidentally do some good. His glistening profession, heavenly speech, and eloquent preaching might bring to the sincere seeker a message of real comfort. Like an actor at center stage who stirs up passion in the audience by counterfeit tears, the hypocrite, playing his religious role, may temporally spark the believer’s true graces. But that is when the Christian may be in the most serious danger, for he will not readily suspect the person who once helped him spiritually.

If the meaning of Jesus is this different from what he was understood by his Palestinian disciples and adversaries to mean, and if those ordinary meanings need to be filtered through a hermeneutic transposition and replaced by an ethic of social revelation? Is there such a thing as a Christian ethic at all? If there be no specifically Christian ethic but only natural human ethics as held to by Christians among others, does this thoroughgoing abandon of particular substance apply to ethical truth only? Why not to all truth as well?

-John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 2nd ed.

The Japanese culture has an inner group and outer group. “Many Japanese Christians are finding ways through the Alpha Course and through cell groups and through other ministries to expand their inner group — to make room in their lives for meaningful relationships with non-Christians. And in those relationships, the Lord is doing a great work.”

There are other issues preventing massive church growth, however. Clark says, “People are very committed to their traditions. Even though many Japanese people are not actively spiritual, they are not willing to step outside of their family’s commitment to Buddhist and Shinto traditions.”

Well worth the read, I hope someday to contribute to the work of the Gospel there.

“What Have We Done?” as performed by The Northern Conspiracy on Good Friday (April 6th, 2007) at MHC | Shoreline.

This was performed at Mars Hill Church (Seattle) on Good Friday, although a little repetitive it does a good job of looking deep within and admitting honestly the reality of our Christ-following.

Oh my soul, Oh my Jesus. Judas sold you for thirty, I’d have done it for less.

Oh my soul, Oh my Savior. Peter denied you three times, I have denied you more.

As the nails went in, I was standing right there.

As you breathed your last, I shook my head and I cried.

Oh my God, what have we done. We have destroyed your son (x2)

Oh my soul, Oh my Jesus. Judas sold you for thirty, I’d have done it for less.

Oh my soul, Oh my Savior. Peter denied you three times, I have denied you more.

And the blood ran down, and I was standing right there

And the water poured, I shook my head and I cried.

Oh my God, what have we done. We have destroyed your son (x4)

(repeat v. 1)

More than just a non-sensical title - a vase made by bees and designed by an artist*, how cool!

Bees are so industrious when they are at the job. Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny introduces With a Little Help of the Bees in Milan. It is a vase built by bees. we quote Dezeen: “Libertiny made a vase-shaped hive that the bees then colonised, building a hexagon comb around it. The wax sheets used to make the hive were embossed with a honeycomb pattern to help the bees on their way. Libertiny calls the process “slow prototyping” - it took 40,000 bees a week to make the vase. Since the bees get aggressive when they are interrupted, Libertiny had to guess when it was time to remove the vase.” (Thanks to treehugger)

*talk about collaboration

The single most impacting individual on my (young) theological mind passed away last night, I had hoped to meet him in person, but I will have to wait.

From Lee Irons (via ref21):

Today I learned that my favorite seminary professor passed away peacefully last night after a long illness. He taught me much about the covenantal and typological structure of the Scriptures. Most of all I will miss his sweet joy and his childlike trust in the inheritance-earning merit of Christ. It is wonderful to know that his longing to imbibe the glory of God in the New Jerusalem is already beginning to be satisfied. Though now asleep in Jesus, he will rise in the parousia-day of Christ, changed into his indoxated likeness.

Apologies to any readers - I’ve been wicked busy with work and getting things lined up for school. I have been accepted to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and am in the process sorting out all of my funding. Amazing blessings have come in the form The Graham Scholarship, but other funding is certainly needed. I’m excited about continuing my education and hope to get back to the blog as I have time.