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May 02, 2008
Life : Web surfing expands . . .
It seems to be one of those maxim's: Web Surfing Expands to Fill the Time Allotted.
A while back I switched to using Google Reader to follow any web sites that have RSS feeds. It significantly reduced the time I needed to go through the sites that I visited regularly. I can scan through the titles of all of the new posts on every site I am interested and quickly pick out those few I want to read in detail. A very efficient mechanism.
Of course, adding new sites for Google Reader to check for me is easy, and the incremental cost for each new site is small, so naturally I have been quite free with adding new sites to my list to surf. The result? I am now spending almost as much time surfing today as I was just before I started using Google Reader. sigh.
To be fair, I am now checking for new content on 48 different sites and reviewing (on average) 200 excerpts (titles, first paragraphs) a day. I probably only read 10-15 articles out of all that; but it still takes time. And this is on top of another couple dozen sites I check which do not have RSS feeds.
Why do labor saving devices never seem to actually save you any labor?
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
May 05, 2008
Books : Books 2008/05/05
Current count of books pending to be read: 119
Read one, purchased none.
Books finished this week:
Swerve: Reckless Observations of a Postmodern GirlAisha Tyler
A series of essays by a young African-American woman about beauty, dating, and the meaning of life. Yeah. A rather unlikely book for me to read. The author was guest reviewer on “At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper” and I found her perspective on cinema interesting so I picked up the book out of curiosity. I’m definitely not the target audience (which may have contributed to it taking two weeks for me to find enough reading time to finish it); but I did find it interesting. She is a “liberated” woman, not in the old Women’s Lib sense of the word; but in a new postmodern sense of knowing who she is and what she wants. Seeing her perspective on things laid out with such good humor was worth the effort.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 07, 2008
Life : Maker Faire
This passed Saturday Anne and I went to the annual "Maker Faire", sponsored by Make magazine (and its sibling publication Craft). This is a gathering of people who, well, like to make stuff. Everything from people who knit (Anne's focus) to people who build their own musical instruments from scratch, to people who do model rocketry, to people who build robots and even folks who build custom Victorian-style cases for computers. The common theme of the whole show is the value of hand crafted goods and the knowledge of how to do things for yourself.
We had a great time, although there were only two talks Anne and I went to together. One by a knitting humorist who I also enjoy, and another that was a demonstration of molecular gastronomy where the presenter created carrot juice "caviar" – small beads of carrot juice with a thin outer membrane and liquid inside. I also saw a talk by the creator of the character McGyver (a patron saint to this crowd) and one on the recent re-creations of Babbage's Difference Engine (including one made from children's construction kits). This on top of visiting hundreds of booths with a variety of demonstrations, tools, and goods.
I really respect the people in this movement, and realize how much of what I am today is a result of how my family encouraged me to make things for myself when I was young. I remember playing with "Major Mat Mason" astronaut action figures when I was in 2nd and 3rd grade and how my parents encouraged me to build my own moonscape diorama out of paper machete to play on. I also did model rocketry and fairly quickly transitioned to creating my own designs (some of which worked, all of which were educational). Inspired by my brother, I started taking plastic model car kits and creating my own vehicles using parts from different kits. My parents also made sure my brother and I knew how to cook – we were given responsibility for preparing Thanksgiving dinner for the family (with supervision).
On the other hand, there was a touch of sadness in going to the faire and I really don't do this kind of stuff anymore. Partially this is a reflection of my personal transition of going from atoms to bits – I still create stuff; but my creations are almost entirely made of bits. Partially this is a reflection of the desire of Anne and me to live light – to reduce the amount of stuff we own. One thing all of the people who participate in the faire have in common is that they have lots of stuff – tools, finished projects, projects in process, etc. I've contemplated restarting one of my "maker" hobbies from time to time; but the question always ends up "where would I put it all?" I still want to know how to do all of this kind of stuff for myself (hence my desire to go to the faire); but actually doing it represents a level of baggage on my life that I am unwilling to carry right now.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
May 09, 2008
Life : Six Word Memior
I've been tagged by Barry to participate in the Six Word Memoir meme:
1. Write the title to your own memoir using 6 words.
2. Post it on your blog.
3. Link to the person that tagged you.
4. Tag five more blogs.
Here's mine:
A life exploring transitions between conceptssubtitled
How does this result in that?
I will however descline step 4, although I would welcome Melissa trying this (or Ro in a comment).
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
May 12, 2008
Books : Books 2008/05/12
Current count of books pending to be read: 117
Read two, purchased none.
Books finished this week:
The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind: Access to a Life of MiraclesBill Johnson
Bill Johnson is a popular author in Vineyard Church circles; but I hadn’t actually read any of his books until now. This book fits perfectly into that awkward middle ground of my life – I already knew everything the author says; but there is much of it I do not put into practice. That is often the case with me reading Christian books – I already know far more about what following Jesus is supposed to be like than I have managed to incorporate into how I am actually following Him. Sometimes I despair that reading more books on my faith is pointless since it will likely take the rest of my life to be transformed into someone who does what I already know I should be doing. On the other hand, there are the occasional books that says things in a way that provides just that smack on the side of my head that I needed to allow God to make the necessary changes in my life. This was not one of those books for me; but it could well be such a book for someone else.
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian SpiritualityDonald Miller
Wow. It’s not often a book grabs me on the first page and doesn’t let me go. It has certainly been a few months since I finished a book the same day I started; but despite having other plans for the day, I just couldn’t put this one down. I am going to give this book a blog post of its own, so I won’t say a lot now other than: Wow.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: Persepolis
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 14, 2008
Books : Blue Like Jazz
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian SpiritualityDonald Miller
Did I mention I liked this book?
Last year I was curious about the whole “Emergent/Emerging Church” movement and picked up a number of books that people associated with it. Once I had read enough to understand what was going on, I back-burnered the rest of them. Unfortunately for me, “Blue Like Jazz” got caught in the backwash. I wish I had read it sooner.
This book is a collection of extremely well written musing on authentic Christianity – with the emphasis on “authentic”. It is a man telling his experiences learning what it means to be a Christian, warts and all; and is one of the most refreshing books on faith that I have read in a long time. Unlike most Christian literature, it is not a book about how things should be by someone who claims to have the answers. It is instead a book about learning how things are from someone who still doesn’t have it all figured out.
The author talks candidly about his struggles to accept God’s love, to love others, and to love himself. It explores the times when his faith wavered, when his sanity wavered, and when his humility wavered. But most of all it chronicles the author’s journey from an institutional, religious form of Christianity to a faith that is simply about having a relationship with Jesus and thereby having a better relationship with other people.
I didn’t realize at first; but Don Miller was part of the small group that started the Imago Dei Community – an unconventional church in Portland, OR. I have heard stories both about how committed they are to the idea of the church being a community and how committed they are to expressing God’s love to people by serving them with no strings attached (you don’t help those in need to entice them to become Christians; you help them because God loves them). Don’s comments about his time with Imago Dei support the stories I have heard.
Back when I was pondering Melissa’s questions about books I thought everyone should read, one direction I explored was thinking about books people in certain categories of people should read. What books should every software engineer read? What books should every Christian read? Were I now to make such a list of books that every non-Christian should read, I think “Blue Like Jazz” might well be at the top of the list. This truth is that most people who object to Christianity are objecting to the instructional religion that bears that name today; but that is not the Christianity I know and experience. The book “Blue Like Jazz” is probably the most honest presentation of the difference I have yet read.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 16, 2008
Faith : Grace and Sanctification
A child puts their hand on a hot stove and burns themselves. There are two problems to address – treating the direct consequences of the action (the burns) and teaching the child not to do that. It is hard to address the behavioral aspects without dealing with the direct consequences first.
A young boy breaks a shop window. There are two problems to address – the direct legal/financial consequences of the action (the angry show owner and the broken window) and finding out why the boy did it and changing the underlying causes of the behavior. Again, it may be necessary to address the direct consequences first and then the root causes over time. Perhaps the boy's father offers to pay to replace the windows if the shop owner doesn't go to the police and then takes the boy home for a very long talk.
People sin (we act selfishly, self-centeredly) – it is our nature. Because of that there are two problems to address - the direct consequences of our sin (estrangement from God, from others, from ourselves) and there is the root cause, our flawed nature. Since the direct consequence of our sin interferes with God's ability to interact with us, He needed to address that issue first before he can deal with the second. So, like the father of the boy, he paid the price for our misdeeds. Having dealt with that, God is now in a position to work on the root causes of our problems – our flawed nature which God wants to transform into His image.
The first of these acts by God is the foundation of the principle of "grace" – that God restored our perfect relationship with Him entirely by His doing. Christians can neither add nor detract from the quality of our relationship to God because the existence of that relationship is completely God's doing. The second is the process of "sanctification" – God transforming us into holy creatures. While grace has cleared the way for God to have a relationship with us, sin still very much matters to Him and God wants to set us free not just from the consequences of sin but from sin itself.
It is important that every presentation of the God's good news (the term "gospel" translates to "good news") talk about both problems and both solutions. Both sinning and sin nature. Both grace and sanctification.
Churches that talk mostly about grace tends to be like parents who bail their children out of every problem they get into without expecting them to change; and the result is much the same – spoiled children. Churches that talk mostly about sanctification are like parents who don't treat their child's burns and cuts to "teach them a lesson"; and the result is much the same – angry, fearful, and estranged children. Churches that teach both in a balanced way produce Christians who know they are loved by God but are at the same time striving to allow God to transform them into His image – abandoning their old sinful, selfish ways and adopting the new nature God offers to them.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
May 19, 2008
Books : Books 2008/05/19
Current count of books pending to be read: 114
Read three, purchased none.
Sorry this is a bit late getting up – got distracted and forgot that I hadn’t prepared it.
Books finished this week:
The Complete PersepolisMarjane Satrapi
I saw the movie that was made of this book and enjoyed it so much that wanted to read the original. Given the author’s involvement in the film, it is no surprise how similar they are in both voice and visual style, with the only difference being that some of the more tangential side stories had to be omitted in the movie. I’m still amazed at the humility of the author in showing just what a brat she was as a child.
StardustNeil Gaiman
Another book made into a movie (I hadn’t noticed that until I was almost done with it). This time the differences were more significant, including some of my favorite parts of the movie not being in the book at all. Still, Gaiman is one of my favorite authors and I found this to be a thoroughly enjoyable read as a kind of post-modern fantasy story.
11: Indispensable Relationships You Can't Be WithoutLeonard Sweet
An interesting thesis – that all of us are in need eleven specific kinds of relationships in our lives. As examples – we all need someone who will tell us when we are wrong, we all need someone to mentor, we all need someone who can get us moving when we have stalled, etc. On the one hand, I think the author pushed things too far to get eleven (I’m not convinced we all need a relationship with a misfit). On the other hand, I do lack some of the relationships he describes and can see how I am the poorer for it.
Computer Games Played: LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: What have they done with Jesus?
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 21, 2008
Faith : Grace and Sanctification, Take 2
I’m going to try this again.
Humanity is flawed. We, by our natures, do things which are harmful to ourselves, to each other, and more critically, to our relationship with God. But the things we do are merely a result of our flawed natures – our nature is the real impediment to our relationships with God, and our actions are merely evidence of that nature.
This is the first place that many people (including many Christians) get it wrong – by focusing on what we do and not what we are. They think that by, on average, doing more good things than bad things they can be acceptable to God. But that’s like inviting someone to eat a piece of meat because only, on average, less than half of it is rotten. Few of us would find that prospect appetizing. In the Bible it says that to God, “all our righteousness is as filthy rags” (and the more literal translation of that passage is even stronger).
A key point here is that because it is our nature that is flawed there was nothing we could do from our side to establish a right relationship with God. Anything we did would be a product of our nature, and would as a result be flawed itself. A bridge built with rotten timbers could not support itself across the chasm that needs to be crossed.
So what’s God to do? He wants to have a close relationship with us; but our natures make us so corrupted that this is a problem. God has the ability to work with us to change our natures; but that requires having a relationship with us first. He needed some means to establish a relationship with us so that He could then establish a relationship with us. It seems like a “Catch-22”.
God’s answer was the cross.
There are a lot of different ways to explain the significance of what Jesus did on the cross – how exactly it provided a means to establish a relationship where none was possible. In my reading of the whole Bible I prefer to think in terms of the doctrine of “substitutionary atonement” – that Jesus took on himself all of the consequences of our flawed natures, like someone else going to jail in our place to pay for a crime we committed. I do however acknowledge that others who prefer to explain the cross in different terms. The bottom line however in all of the variations of doctrines is that when you get past the theological/legal details, what Jesus did on the cross was to open up a means by which God could establish a relationship with us; and by that relationship begin to help us work on our flawed natures.
So, there is now a means for God to establish a relationship with humanity – for those who are interesting in such a relationship. It is however the nature of the solution that it is optional on humanity’s part. A path to God exists; but people must travel it. We all have the right to continue our lives without a relationship with God and without His transforming power in our lives. We all have the right to stay just the way we are, flawed and broken, hurting ourselves and others as we live our lives.
Yet in this all, our contribution to establishing a relationship between us and God is at most our willingness to submit to such a relationship through the cross. All of the rest of the work is God’s. There is nothing we can do to earn such a relationship, it is something God did for us out of His love for us. It is a free gift, available for taking for those who are willing. It is grace.
Strict Calvinists would go so far as to say that even our decisions to submit to that relationship, to take the gift of grace, is God’s work; while Arminians would say that receiving a free gift is not work. Regardless, the key is that our relationship with God is not a result of “being good”. It is completely a result of God’s actions to clear the way for such a relationship despite our still “being bad”. As the Bible says in Romans 5:8: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us”
Yet all of that is not to say that what we do is irrelevant. Remember – the whole point of God wanting to establish a relationship was so that He would work in our lives to transform our natures. We do not become “good people” to get into a relationship with God – instead we get into a relationship with God so we could become “good people”. As the Bible says in Ephesians 2:8-10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works , which God prepared in advance for us to do.” We are not saved by good works; but we are saved to do good works.
God’s plan then is to use His relationship with those who desire such a relationship to change our natures into ones that are not flawed – to transform us into His image, and thereby change us into people who do not hurt each other and ourselves. This is not however and immediate transformation. It is a process that takes time, and all Christians are somewhere in the process. The speed of the process is in part influences by our willingness to be transformed, and God often has to work long and hard to get us to see ways in which we need to change; but once we are willing to change in some area, God is able to make the transformation; and as He does we all become better and better people.
The problem is that this is not what most Christian churches teach. Yes, they may quote the same scriptures and give lip service to these doctrines; but the real message they teach by their actions and attitudes that is you have to be good to have a relationship with God, or for that matter to have a relationship with the church. The idea that our relationship with God is based on what God did, not on what we do and the idea that our transformation into “good people” is a process which we are all in the middle of (and therefore we are all therefore at least partially un-transformed) – those ideas get lost in the spirit of self-righteousness that prevails.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
May 23, 2008
Faith : Grace, amazing
I have written (twice) on the interplay and balance between the principles of grace and sanctification. I also want to delve into each of these concepts individually, starting with the principle of grace. As I have already written, grace is that principle by which God has unilaterally established a means for flawed humanity to have a relationship with Him, despite none of us being worthy or qualified in our own rights to enter into such a relationship. This relationship is a free gift from God, available to any who want it, which is in no way dependant on our actions (beyond possibly seeking such a relationship).
What most Christians miss here (and I include myself in this for most of my Christian walk), is that since a Christian’s relationship with God is based on grace, there is nothing they can do to alter that relationship. A Christian cannot improve their relationship with God by their actions because God has already done everything that is needed to have a complete relationship with Him. Nor can a Christian harm their relationship with God by their actions because, again, the relationship was established by God despite our flawed nature. Now God may be pleased when we allow Him to transform us and therefore we become more like Him in our actions, and He may be disappointed when we stubbornly cling to our old ways and old nature; but neither of those states effect the essential nature of the relationship – that God loves us and wants to continue working in our lives to improve us and in the process, use us to help others.
Instead of believing this, most Christians believe that when they fail, when they “sin”, that God goes away for a while, like a petulant lover who has been offended. They believe that when they have sinned God isn’t interested in talking to them, or working in (or through) their lives for some period of time (certainly until they have confessed their sins, and perhaps for a while thereafter). But that then implies that our relationship with God and His ability to work in our lives is somehow dependant on our actions – that we need to be “good enough” for God to work in and through us. Yet to say so is to imply that Jesus’ work on the cross was not sufficient that we have to add some of our own works to complete the process and allow God’s relationship to be complete. Yet God established the relationship before we had been transformed at all – when we were at our worst – so what could we possibly do afterwards to detract from it?
I unfortunately can bear personal witness to the falsity of this view. There has been more than one occasion when I totally blew it, sin wise (sorry – not details in a public forum), but discovered that God was able to work in and through me in a powerful way despite what I had done. If anything, the events left me sufficiently humble before Him that he seemed to be able to work with more freely (I’ll touch on this again at a moment). The Bible is also full of stories of people God worked through who were far from paragon’s of virtue. If anything, the Bible goes out of its way to make clear how flawed all of the people are.
To be clear here, I’m not saying that someone who stubbornly refuses to allow God to change them will see the benefits of a full relationship with Him. As I have said previously, a key purpose God had in establishing the relationship is to help us become the best possible people we can be. So if we refuse that transformation, the relationship will not produce the desired fruit – but not because God is somehow offended by our actions or because the relationship itself has been weakened; but rather because we do not partake of the benefits of the relationship.
I also want to note here that the converse to all of this is also true – when Christians are especially “good” (have avoided “sinning”, etc.) God is not able to work in (and through) their lives more or better. Again, that would imply that we can somehow add something to Jesus’ complete work on the cross. We can’t. My own observation is that often the opposite is true because when we are good is when we are most tempted by pride; and I personally believe that pride is the most problematical sin to God. Consider: the essence of pride is a belief in our own abilities – that we are able to do something in our own strength. Pride then is a form of idolatry – the worship of the false god of “self” (and I say this as someone who has had a live-long struggle with pride). Once we engage our pride, we cease to look for what God is doing because we are focused on what we ourselves can do. In pride, we implicitly refuse God’s work in our lives because we think we can do it without Him. When we are humble, we seek God because we know we need Him. In our humility, God has greater freedom to act in our lives because we are more open and accepting of His work. I’ll get into this more when I write on sanctification in a later post.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
May 26, 2008
Books : Books 2008/05/26
Current count of books pending to be read: 111
Read three, purchased none.
This week is an interesting milestone in the project to reduce my backlog of books to be read. First, I have been doing this for 6 months as of this week. Second, I have also managed this week to reduce the number of books waiting to be read on my shelf by one third – definite progress.
Stepping back, in the last 6 months I have read a total of 71 books and purchased 15. What’s interesting is that with the exception of the Christmas break when I made a deliberate effort to clear out all of the “quick reads” on my shelf, this progress has not be a matter of my reading more books than normal; but rather has purely been a matter of discipline in not buying (many) books. Looking at the details and at how my Amazon wish list has grown, I expect in a “normal” year I would probably have read about 55-60 books by now; but would have purchased about 70-75.
This is useful information for me. I’ve always known I read a lot; but I never had a clear idea of how much. That will be necessary information when I finally get my backlog under control and try to keep my reading list at a steady state – it means that I should budget to buy around 9 books a month.
OK, enough with the prologue:
Books finished this week:
What Have They Done with Jesus?: Beyond Strange Theories and Bad History--Why We Can Trust the Bibleby Ben Witherington
Interesting book. The author’s intent was to respond to the variety of theories about alternative or “suppressed” versions of Christianity that have been talked about recently. What makes the book interesting is the methodology – taking a biographical look at those who were close to Jesus (people like Peter, Mary Magdalene, etc.), based only on first century records (discounting those works that seem to have been written later) and trying to discern what Jesus was like and what He taught based on their identity and behavior. Frankly, I’m not sure how valid the approach is; but the result is certainly a different point of view which I am glad that I read – even if I do not agree with all of his analysis (amongst other things, he has some odd ideas as to who the real author of the gospel of John is). His bottom line is that the evidence indicates that first century Christianity was fairly orthodox in its doctrines with the only real debate being about how to view the Jewish law. All of the various alternative Christianities came about later (in the second and third centuries), did not reflect what Jesus taught, and were therefore rightly dismissed.
The Prostitute in the Family Tree: Discovering Humor and Irony in the Bibleby Douglas Adams
Not, alas, “the” Douglas Adams (which I suspect would have done a much better job on the same subject). It is said that if you have to explain a joke, it isn’t funny - this book is proof of that. To some extent the book seems to be an attempt to teach people how to make sermons and lessons more interesting by bringing out the natural humor in the Bible; but it all fell quite flat for me. I have a feeling the author has had to resort to such things because he may not have anything interesting to say to begin with. While I do believe that God has a great sense of humor and there is a lot of humor in the Bible if you have sufficient cultural context to see it, this is NOT the book to read to understand that.
Tales of the Slayer, Volume 4by assorted
Part of the mythology behind the TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is that Buffy is just the latest in a very long line of young women who have been called to battle of the forces of darkness. The “Tales of the Slayers” series of books are collections of short stories about some of the other “Slayers” through history. It’s actually quite a rich set-up for a lot of different kinds of stories, and the books have done it justice. I actually read the first three volumes in rapid succession a few years ago and burned out before I got to the fourth, so this has been sitting on my shelf for a while. The fourth book is a little different from the others – another part of the mythology of the series is that (assuming they live that long) when a slayer reaches the age of eighteen, they are put through a test by the watchers (their mentors). All of the stories in this book relate to how other slayers came through that test (or not).
Computer Games Played: Age of Conan (AoC) and LotRO
DVDs Watched: none
Next Book: The Emotion Machine
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 28, 2008
Faith : A Manifesto for Church
We interrupt the series of blog posts I have been doing because I’ve once again been tagged with a blog meme. This time I really can’t complain since I was the one who instigated the meme by a comment I made on Barry’s blog “Honest Faith”.
Rules:
1. Post to your blog on the subject "A Manifesto for Church", outlining your thoughts on what an ideal church would/should be like. Posts can be as detailed or as short as you like.
2. Include a copy of these rules.
4. Put a link to your post in the comments to this post.
5. Tag at least 4 other people.
6. What happened to rule 3?
3. Ah, here it is.
(as usual, I will skip the rules about tagging others)
Steven’s Manifesto for Church
Membership
* A church is a collection of people who have individually established Jesus as their Lord and Savior and who God has called together to form a community.
* Everyone who feels called to participate in a given community should be welcomed, even if they are not believers or are uncertain about their belief.
* The diversity within a given church community should usually be expected reflect the diversity of the town and culture in which it meets.
Leadership
* Jesus is the head of the church. He alone, through the working of the Holy Spirit leads and directs His church.
* There will however be a plurality of individuals raised from among the membership who serve as facilitators and moderators within the community.
* They will not necessarily be the primary teachers nor the people providing direction to the community – it should be expected that God may use anyone within the church to provide ideas, direction, words, teachings, prophesies, etc.
* They will, as part of their role, keep watch for occasions when teaching or activities get “off track” from what the Holy Spirit is leading the community to do. Therefore the primary requirement for this role is a reliable sensitivity to what the Holy Spirit is doing.
* They will however in all other respects just be members of the community who are growing and being transformed along with everyone else. They will have faults, and should be open and honest about their own progress in The Lord along with everyone else.
* As a community of Christians is led by God to gather, there will be individual who, as they follow the Spirit’s leadership in their own life, start to fulfill this role. As the community becomes comfortable with those individual’s discernment of what the Spirit is doing, they should be publicly recognized as trusted facilitators and moderators. This should be done by acclamation since it should be evident to all that this is how the individual is being used. If there is dissent, then that should be addressed first within the community before any proposal is made.
* Likewise, if someone is no longer seen as serving in this role (for wherever reason), it should be acknowledged by the community, although care should be taken to do this in a loving way.
* These are not paid or “full time” positions – they are merely recognized roles within the community.
The Church Gathered
When the people of the church gather…
* They should meet in groups small enough that everyone can actively participate. Occasional larger gatherings may be useful; but should not be the focus of the community.
* When the church gathers, there should be regular opportunities for everyone to share things they believe God has led them to share. This can include teachings, prophesies, questions, testimonies, confessions, songs, praise, prayer requests, prayers, project ideas, etc.
* The facilitators and moderators should make sure that everything is done decently and in order and that everyone who has something they feel God wants them to share has a chance.
* All of the congregation are responsible for weighing and discerning in their own hearts if what is shared is really of God or not; but the facilitators and moderators should take public action (in a loving way) when something is done that is potentially harmful to the community. Most of the time all that is needed is to remind everyone that they are all in the process of learning to listen to God and that none of them have perfected this yet, so discernment should be applied whenever anyone speaks (including the facilitators/moderators).
* When the church gathers, there should be regular opportunities for people to simply talk about what God is doing in their lives. Hearing about real world struggles and victories from someone else going though the same things as you is the best kind of lesson to get.
* When the church gathers, time should also be regularly spent studying the Bible. This should be done chapter by chapter, book by book, to ensure that the full context of the passages are understood and to ensure that nothing is missed.
* While those who have been gifted as teachers will likely have more to contribute in this, everyone should be given the opportunity to contribute (a discussion format is useful in this regard).
* While studying the Bible, the focus should always remain on the practical real-world applications of what it says and not on esoteric doctrines. If no one can see how some point will affect their behavior in the coming year, it is not worth spending much time on.
* Room should be given for those with doubts or differing views to allow time for God to correct whoever is in error (remember Philippians 3:15).
* The church should also regularly gather for purely social interaction. This can be a part of a more general meeting or special meetings that are purely social.
The Church Scattered
* The church should do more than meet as a community – it should also express God’s Kingdom to the town and culture in which it meets.
* It should endeavor to care for the sick, help the needy, and set free those who are in bondage. It should do all of these things not as an opportunity to preach; but just as an opportunity to demonstrate God’s love with no strings attached.
* It should also communicate to the town and culture in which it meets the good news of Jesus and the Kingdom of God.
* Both of these (caring for people and communicating the gospel) should be done individually by people as they are led by God in specific situations and as a community.
* Ideas for community projects may be proposed by anyone (via the prompting of the Holy Spirit) and ratified by the whole community if they agree that this is God’s calling for them.
* Collections may be taken to support specific needs within and without the community and to support specific projects.
Discipline
* If an individual within the community engages in behavior which is harmful to themselves, others in the church (who feel God’s leading to do this as coordinated with the facilitators/moderators) should meet with them privately and try to address the issue in love. If the individual is not receptive, prayer and time should be given to allow God to work on them.
*If an individual within the community engages in behavior that is disruptive or harmful to the community as a whole or is interfering with other individuals’ abilities to continue to grow in The Lord, the facilitators and moderators should speak with them privately to address the issue. The goal should be to find some means for the individual to continue within the community without their being disruptive to others.
* If no such accommodation can be found, then the matter should be brought before the community as a whole and if there is a consensus, they should be asked to find a different community to participate in.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
May 30, 2008
Faith : Sanctification, gradual
Continuing on with the series I had been doing on grace and sanctification, here are some specific observations on the process of sanctification.
As I have said previously in this series, humanity is flawed in our natures. We naturally do things that are harmful to ourselves, to each other, and to our relationship with God. God has provided a means to re-establish our relationship to Him through the Cross. One of God’s goals in re-establishing that relationship is so that He can work in our lives to change our nature. This process of God’s transformation of us is known by the theological term “sanctification”. So while we are not “saved” by somehow being “good enough” for God, the result of our being “saved” should be that we become “good”, or at least better than we were.
The key point I want to make is that this is a gradual process. It is true that by virtue of what Jesus did on the cross, God can interact with us as if we were already perfected. So in some legal/theological sense, we become pure and holy the instant we commit to taking Jesus as our Lord and Savior. However, one does not have to hang around Christians for very long before it becomes evident that this is a legal fiction (in the technical sense of that phrase) – that in reality we are all start our Christian walk just as messed up as we ever were and that it takes time for us to be changed by God into His image.
My observation is that the reason this takes time is that God only works in us when we let him. Some say this is because God has given us free will and will not take it back. Others have developed other theological explanations for this. Regardless, it appears God will not make a change in our nature unless we are willing to let him make such a change.
So why would someone not be willing to allow God to change them into a better person? As it turns out there are many reasons.
Sometimes a person doesn’t believe that something needs to change. They believe that a given aspect of their personality is just fine as it is, even though God knows they would be better with it different. In such cases God needs to wait until they become aware of the consequences of keeping that part of themselves before He can act. I personally believe God will, at the right time, provide circumstances in that person’s life that will highlight the need for change, so they will become more receptive to God’s work.
Sometimes a person wants to hold on to some aspect of themselves even when they recognize that it is harmful. They do this because the flaw and its consequences have become a familiar part of their identity and they no longer know who they would be if they let it go. I most often see this in people who have been wronged by someone else who have gone on to build some aspect of their life around that injury. Having become used to the bitterness, they are afraid to let it go even though they know it hurts them. I have also seen this with grief and other forms of suffering. In such cases God needs to comfort them and help them to see who they could be if they let go of their injury.
Sometimes a person is convinced that they can make the change themselves without God’s help and so does not give God permission to work in their lives. They might look for God’s help with “big things”; but believe they can handle the little stuff on their own. With such people God merely waits until they have grown tired of trying to do this on their own.
So, for each change God needs to work in us, He first needs to bring us to the point that we acknowledge the need, are willing to change, and have given up trying to fix it ourselves. Then, when we finally come to Him fully ready, He works to replace that part of our old faulty nature with a piece of Himself. It is not unlike transforming an old, broken-down car into a new model piece by piece. God gives us new, flawless pieces of ourselves as we are ready to receive them from Him.
The Christian life is then is a constant process where God is working to bring us to places in our lives where He can change us bit by bit into people who will be blessings to ourselves and others. This is often not a comfortable process – becoming a Christian doesn’t promise a trouble-free life. What it does promise is a relationship with God who will work to help you become all that you can be. At times this can be exhilarating as you see what God is accomplishing in and through you. Other times it can be a real struggle. However, I can honestly say 38+ years on, it has always been worth it.
I also want to note that all of this happens according to God’s plan, who knows best what needs to be changed when to minimize the total harm we all do to each other. This may not always mean that God deals with issues in ourselves and others in the order we want. Sometimes he may even plan on fixing some problem in someone else a bit later because their flaw is useful in bringing us to a place where we are ready to change something else in ourselves. We should not then be looking at each other as God works on us – comparing progress – we should always remain focused on Him and what He is doing with us as individuals.
Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
