Last night Anna and I had a conversation argument over baby names. Sure, it seems like a lame topic to argue over, but amongst the argument we tried to practice a healthy way of arguing by letting one person share their position first, while the other listens to their complete thought in order to respond after.

Anna went first, and as she shared slowly I began to get more and more annoyed. In fact I attempted to interrupt her twice, stopping myself in order to allow her to finish. There was something in me that knew this was right, but my body was not reacting to fondly to the practice. It was almost like my body was fighting itself and the toxicity of good practice mixed with a bad soul was getting the best of me and causing immense anxiety.

I think I have a problem. I don’t think to interrupt is natural. I don’t think that because I felt anxiety I should be allowed to raise the intensity of the conversation.

Listening is good. Having patience, and giving people freedom is good. The toxicity in my body is bad, and I don’t want it in there anymore.

I think this is what God means when he practices and asks us to practice forbearance.

There is ultimately a better reason for withholding. There is a good reason to not say what’s on your mind. Life is not better if we all react as we please. Our forbearance allows us to step back and truly understand the “why” and the “what” of a situation and live in a simple peace.

We are all filled with toxicity that has stemmed out of the “we want it now” mentality of individualism, and I am the worst.

A few days ago Anna and I watched a CNN presentation called Escape from Jonestown, which is about a cult lead by Rev. Jim Jones that lead 900 people into Guyana to a “promised” land that led to their eventual deaths, as everyone was poisoned with cyanide. Story highlights included:

# In 1978, 909 Americans were led to mass murder-suicide by the Rev. Jim Jones
# One-third of the dead at Jonestown were children; only 33 people survived
# Jones led followers to their deaths after his gunmen killed congressman, others
# Sources: Jonestown camp received monthly shipments of cyanide in 1976

Anyway, it was during this special that a few of the people that escaped this tragedy shared their experiences and what went on during those years. Many of them shared that it was their spirituality that led them out there, but now they avoid any sentiment of organized religion. They are still very spiritual people, but they do not think their spirituality could sustain any more from institutions.

I remember when Anna and I heard this, Anna and I looked at each other said, “I totally understand what their saying.” I mean I have never encountered anything remotely close to that, but of course they wouldn’t want to be anywhere near an institution in terms of religion.

And this is where I pick up this book by Jim Palmer called Wide Open Spaces. A book, without the tragedy of death, carries in it the death of Jim Palmer’s connection to organized religion. I noticed this in his last book, Divine Nobodies, this consistent abandonment of organized religion for more organic structures of church and experience with God. But what seems to always preface these ideas, is a bad experience of church. For the Jonestown people I totally understand how they could never (hopefully not never) trust the church again, and I am noticing this same trend come out of US emergent writers mouths over and over again. There is something seriously devastating that has happened in many churches in the States that has seemed to effect a lot of people. Maybe it was the church, maybe it was a person in the church, maybe it was something that happened to the person personally while going to a church, but either way the organized church gets the blame for it and I guess it leads to lots of books about it.

With that said I am finding these books not very helpful in my journey as a church planter and although I get where these people are coming from, and it helps to know that people have been hurt, I find that these books are getting way too much credit, and there should be a movement of more positive reasons for organic church. You see I am all for different forms of organic church and not because I had a bad experience, but on the contrary because I have learned a lot about my Canadian Culture and my own ways of learning that have driven me to create a form of church that is contemporary to its neighbourhood.

So in the end I give this book my CP rating of 1.5/5. It’s maybe helpful if you have had a tough church experience in the United States, but if you are a church planter (and specifically in Canada) I don’t think you will be able to get through it… I sure had trouble.

Note: For a positive read on organic church, please read anything by Joseph Myers, and specifically Organic Community or my favourite, Search to Belong.

After my last post I have had a few friends ask me about these “TED Talks” and I should say they have been quite inspirational in my life. In fact I have a dream of being invited to sit in on these talks live one day, and maybe even give a talk on how a small community of people can transform a city. This one in particular has given me a huge vision for my life and work with toh in Vancouver. I think it’s about time I revisit it. Thanks Nick for bringing this one up again.

I carry this burden sometimes that in my desire to truly create a church that reflects the best of my neighbourhood and (in some way) my country (this would be an entirely different conversation on how you would actually define Canada, and where would that be found in a universal way) I hurt and/ or frustrate many of the people who are on this journey with me.

So here is my first question…

Is it worth changing things up over and over in hopes of taking steps (I know that I can’t in essence create it perfectly) toward this end of a christian community that truly reflects the best of my neighbourhood and thus bringing effect a change to make it in fact even better?

Maybe I am giving myself too much credit. Maybe the changes I bring into being are really not that big a deal and everyone is really enjoying the ride, but I wonder if sooner than later, one of my “changes” is going to bring about a controversy.

Now, with that said I believe another change is coming, and to be honest and to settle my very small readership down, this change is really not that big. But in light of a few of my posts concerning being an exile, and my hope of creating a church that reflects the “best” of a neighbourhood I have begun dreaming (with anna) about a different type of gathering all together. A gathering that teaches what it means to be a way of life, rather than a system of belief. (Quick disclaimer here: I have many thoughts on why both are important, but we default to the system far too often and so I am going to speak plainly on practice, rather than the system).

I have been inspired of late by TED talks. I was first introduced to these when I was in the Bahamas at Soularize a year ago and I want to share some thoughts that I have gleaned through their inspiring ideas and through some of my own philosophy’s for teaching.

My philosophy for a long time has been that the more I read, reflect on the bible/Jesus and other thoughts and ideas about various concepts, the better equipped I am for generating conversation. And at the end, conversation (with eventual action) is my goal.

As I read the bible more and more I realizing that the letters in the NT weren’t commentaries on the OT scriptures but instead the NT letters are real life issues addressed by Paul with support from what Jesus taught and some OT references. My thought is this… Should we perhaps spend more time addressing issues from a practical theology stand point (how the bible journey’s through real life issues we encounter), instead of teaching it plainly. I am sure both are true and maybe this entire post is one of those experiences were I talk through an issue until I know what I was look for.

So amongst my aimless thoughts I am wondering if perhaps to inspire creativity, imagination,and ideas we should allow the bible to inspire these ideas instead of teaching the bible plainly. And as a teacher, should I be much more inspired than I am?

Okay, this post is a mess, but I am going to leave it up anyway because it reminds me of my own process and my hope that all that i do in this church has been well thought through and hopefully inspired by God.

Is anybody tracking with me?

I really enjoyed Doug Pagitt’s first two books (he could have more), church re-imagined and preaching re-imagined and so it was a no brainer to go out and get his new book A Christianity Worth Believing: Hope-filled, Open-armed, Alive and well faith.

My CP rating is 3.5/5, but let me say that I really enjoyed it and think there is a lot more to this book than at first glance. I know that Doug is having a book club online through his blog that you are welcome to join along with. The book reads more like a testimony at first, but then it dives into some good thoughts on how we view God based on Greek/ Roman understanding. What really connected with me was that Romans believed that the gods were angry and that they needed to be appeased and so an understanding of Jesus as an appeasement to the gods through his death on the cross was a reasonable understanding. But Jesus was Jewish and our reading of the bible should be more Hebrew in nature than Greek. Doug does give some ideas in how to read the bible in a more Hebraic way, which are helpful, such as understanding Jesus means Joshua (a Hebrew liberator) and that Jesus being the Messiah was his liberating title and not his “last name” (i.e. Christ) but he spends more time sharing how we shouldn’t read it in an entirely Greek way and begin to explore the Bible in a much more relational way.

Doug paints the Bible in a relational way and highlights the narrative thought behind it, which I really appreciate and if that is something that you have had trouble doing then I think Doug’s way of explaining this is very helpful. I also am very similar to Doug in our upbringing (church wise) and so I found myself really identifying with his story. The book also explores some more personal items of Doug’s, such as his family and his health, which soften the theological depth that he goes into.

I recommend that if you are interested in reading more theological books, but haven’t really taken the plunge, then read this one as a great primer before you start cracking the commentaries.