Shepherds: What’s in a Metaphor?

“Family Planning” is a modern idea.  Modern times cultivated the idea that to understand something is to be able to control its process and in so doing, control the outcome as well. The more we are able to reduce a process to its “components,” the more we re-arrange, modify, slow down, speed up or otherwise “improve” on any given process.  This is technology.

Modernity is (no surprise) still rampant in the American church.  It is big business. Browse a Christian bookstore: it’s unmistakable.  Authors everywhere promise to expose you to how something works and subsequently, how to control outcomes with this knowledge. It might be marriage, raising children, evangelism, finances, or “growing” a church. Someone has figured out how it “works” and if you read their book (or attend their seminar/workshop/conference/course) you will be able to apply a few principles and see the desired results: a more satisfying marriage, well-behaved children, more baptisms, more money, more people attending your church.

Drive in or Drive out?

I have been using just about every spare moment I have to work on the house I’m moving in to (God willing) in about a week now. There is a lot of work to do just to get it ready to paint on the inside, much less move anything in.

It is hard to know why the former owner(s) did not clean this house. It doesn’t really take much money so it couldn’t be a financial thing. Sometimes it’s that people are old or disabled in some way so they just can’t, and can’t afford to hire someone to do it for them. This home has been sitting empty for a little while, but the dirt and grime I’m cleaning away is from probably years of doing absolutley nothing in the home to keep it clean. The walls are blackend, the baseboards caked with grime, the bathroom …like the worst gas-station bathroom you can imagine.

Why even buy a place like this? Fix-’n-flip? Certainly I wouldn’t want to live here… ? There are plenty of places to buy that are in “nicer” neighborhoods…Why not choose to live in the “best” neighborhood I can afford and if I have a “heart for reaching out” just drive in from the ‘burbs?

I could do that, sure. And many Christians do exactly that. They recognise they should be

Simplicity, Complexity and the Glory of God’s Word

I have finished all my course work and will graduate May 17th. Now begins a time of reflection and re-collection as I process this experience called a “seminary education.”

It has taken me until today to settle in to the reality that I can rest for a while at the top of this mountain and look back over the journey. It is difficult to break the pattern of perpetual awareness that becomes part of the inner psyche of the student: that awareness that something must be read, something must be written, something must be submitted to a professor…

One of the most dizzying effects of seminary that I can name right off the bat is the effect of increased complexity. Academic types are into the details, and it is challenging to bear in mind that details are often conjecture; interesting, but dubious.  It is not enough, much of the time, to let the Word of God stand on its own: it has to be interpreted and categorized and systematized and exegeted (and unfortunately, isogeted sometimes in the process). Somewhere between “Go ye therefore and make disciples…” and “the end of the age.” a very long and winding bunny-trail can develop, turning a simple command into a dissertation. Meanwhile, people need to hear the Gospel.

With gratitude for my education, I remain all the more grateful for the Word, by which all things are measured and understood rightly. The Word is our Light through the complexity of human “intelligence.” Following Jesus allows anyone who loves Him to do the most extraordinary things without having to understand how everything “works”  down to the smallest detail (often so that the details can be re-arranged and brought under our own control!) That’s the beauty of the Word. 

So its to the Word of God that I will turn in this post-graduate season of life. The Word was with me when I entered seminary, carried me through, and is here with me at the end of this part of the Journey. 

 The Word became flesh and blood,
      and moved into the neighborhood.
   We saw the glory with our own eyes,
      the one-of-a-kind glory,
      like Father, like Son,
   Generous inside and out,
      true from start to finish.

John 1:14 (TM)

 

Change Happens

The little house I’m buying needs a lot of work… Unlike the fixer-upper I purchased several years ago, that had no “systemic” problems and only “cosmetic” ones (like the late 1960’s tan and turquoise, plastic tile, 4′ high all around the kitchen and into the hallway to the bathroom, firmly attached with mastic 1/2″ thick, with matching floor-tiles…), this house needs some work in the area of HVAC and electrical. Thankfully the plumbing and sewer checked out okay. But this house is in need of some systemic repair before I ever get to the more visible parts of the home.

It got me thinking about what happens when God moves in. I hear people say that God “takes you as you are” and I believe that: there is no ‘fix up’ you or I can do that will entice the King of Heaven to come in and dwell in our hearts. But I’d wonder about

Thesis In

I submitted my Master’s Thesis today:

Singing in the Community of Faith: regaining the incarnational voice of the church.

A thesis presented on the theological implications of the voice-in-song; in particular, its implications for community and sanctification in the Church.

Graduation: May 17.

Just Happy to Be Here

 Every Sunday, at the end of the gathering when we sing a song of celebration and many of the children gather at the front of the church and dance, I think of a story my sister once told me about my little (then about 4 years old) neice:

While on vacation, little Mimi walked down to the water and started dancing on the beach. They watched as she danced and frolicked and finally my sister called out to her rather incredulously, “Mimi, what are you doing?”  Mimi replied, “Oh, I’m just happy to be here!”

That’s how I feel. I have, as a worship leader, only dreamed of a day when I could be part of a gathering like this. I can hardly believe my new home after graduation will be walking distance  from this wonderful little church. The goodness and graciousness of God is beyond measure.

 

Sushi and Reflection

I ate the best sushi ever last night, accompanied by superb conversation with my friend BV. She is an amazing young philosopher who is delving into some very important areas. She is an excellent teacher, unassuming and patient with questions, always willing to explain things. There is not a whiff of ”allow me to enlighten you regarding what you’re not asking about,  while I feel really good about myself for being able to do so.”  I always learn a lot spending time with her.

One of the things she brought up was the phenomenology of shared aesthetic experiences. That really stuck with me and I’ve been pondering a few things this morning. I my usual fashion, I have more questions than answers. The biggest one was how do we define a “shared” aesthetic experience? Does “shared” mean we both experience it similarly (a group of people each sushi and all agree it was good), or simply that we both were exposed to the same aesthetic elements at the same time ( a group of people each sushi ).

Wait. Is eating sushi an aesthetic experience?

Transformation

 The wonderful thing about buying an old fixer-upper house is the opportunity to transform it into a home.   The reason I love buying and old house is that it is a metaphor for what God does with us. He “moves in” and makes a home in us–not only us individually but us as a local church. He starts to restore us and transform us into the character and likeness of His Son, becoming a hospitable expression of God’s own nature.  

Great Stuff

If I had the time and financial resources, I’d totally do this.

Prayer in the ‘Hood

Today, after church, a group of us gathered to walk around the neighborhood, block by block, and pray. We prayed extemporaneously as the Holy Spirit impressed on us the needs before us, and we also had a wonderful collection of prayer-walk appropriate prayers that Clint put together for us.

As we walked and prayed we also took note of homes that looked like they might need some tlc. We plan to offer that kind of assistance to neighbors in the near future. Its a great way to get to know your neighbors and help them in practical ways that make a difference in their lives.

I’m thankful for this little neighborhood church. It’s an answer to prayer.

What’s New?

I had such fun reading this today.  – written over 100 years ago…

 

Jumping the Groove

Grace, blogging thoughtfully by the way over at Kingdom Grace, wrote in the comments on an earlier post of mine this thought that deserves some highlight:

“…it may not necessarily always be the same people in the same building. I actually think this is healthy as we begin to see ourselves connected more widely to the body of Christ.”

I agree with Grace. But this one is hard to grasp for many people, it seems.  Those who are very committed to a particular place of worship can find it very difficult to accept that we can move from house-of-worship to house-of worship and never “leave” the church.

While a sense of place is, I believe, integral to “being the church” I am not one who thinks it is healthy for these places to be disconnected and uncooperative with one-another. A competitive spirit runs rampant among local churches, swapping the same sheep back and forth between camps with more attractive slogans, programs, and events to take in on a Sunday. People don’t tend to move from one church to another because they see themselves as part of one great Kingdom of God, but because of  malcontent followed by better advertising. The consumer mentality has carved a deep, deep groove in the psyche of Evangelicalism…

Plato Would Applaud

Barna affirms it’s the new rage. “Be” the church — don’t “go to” church.  “Not even a house church?” one incredulous commenter asked the author of a post I recently read… as if house church were the answer to the deep and disturbing deformities currently nagging the institution and deeply wounding people. No, not even a house church. 

Huh,  I pondered. So we’re going to “be” without a body…  at least Plato would applaud.

The reasoning sometimes goes like this: the church is not a building,  ergo, there is nothing to go “to” when you go “to” church. Church is sort of all around us, like a sea of spirits in

An Apology

I learned this morning through a faithful friend that I had blogged awry.

Kingdom Grace — I removed the post for you and for peace. I hope we can talk.

Shalom to all,

-Susan

Follow Jesus, please !

There’s lots to love about the Constructive Curmudgeon, particularly if you have the blessing of working at the same institution with him and get to know a  little  about the man behind his sometimes…. well, curmudgeonly…. rants. But today’s post is not-to-miss. Find it here.