Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
alyssarachelle on July 8th, 2007
My visits home to Des Moines, Iowa always guarantee solid reflections. This most recent homeward bound visit of the summer was no different. During this particular trip, my senses were overwhelmed by the contrasts of my two homes. The airplane acted as a time warp back into a time and place where things were easy, things were comfortable; a place where the people closest to my heart are geographically closest to me again. When I stepped back into that world, I realized how uncomfortable my life in Portland was in comparison. At my parents’ house, I enjoyed the privacy of my own room, the safety of suburban running trails, an absence of constant city noise, a refrigerator full of yummy mom foods, the ease of knowing every street in the area, being near to my beloved siblings… I started to get a bit teary-eyed one day reflecting on all the good things of home; the good things that I had left behind. I realized that being away from home was hard, and living in Portland, despite the many blessings had been an adjustment. Returning to Des Moines was like finishing a long race; I was finally able to bend over, rest my weak legs, and tend to the scars I had suffered along the way.
As the weeks passed during my vacation, I soaked up the blessings of this restful time, but my mind also began to reflect on the dangers of living in comfort. This environment was serving a needed purpose in my life at this time, but the longer I stayed in Des Moines, the more I contemplated moving back. I began to long for the safety I felt there, and the nearness of family and the ease of the suburbs. Two movies and one surprising sermon at church confirmed my decision to remain in Portland. The stories found in “Blood Diamond” and “Freedom Writers” reminded me of the many lost and broken people in the world. I began to imagine the world through the eyes of one of these characters and I wondered perhaps if we the Americans are often caught in a fuzzy haze because of our comforts. We can’t see clearly because they have dulled our senses. When you’re surrounded by comfort, you tend to avoid suffering and you lose any sense of solidarity with those who do. The drug of comfort moves us to apathy instead of motivating us for change. You can’t hide from pain and suffering although I admit that sometimes I want to. I get fearful and small, like the troubles of the entire world will crush me if I try to lend a hand.
These movies motivated me not to chase the desires of comfort, but rather the desires to know Christ and to be obedient to him. Perhaps a day will come for me to return to Des Moines, but for now I must remain separated from the comforts of my beloved family on Mary Lynn Drive. As my time in the Midwest came to a close, I heard a sermon that renewed my sense of purpose in returning back to Portland and capped off my reflections. This preacher was giving the non-sugar-coated version of Jesus’ message to go out and serve the poor, the broken, and the lost–not a sermon I expected to hear in rich suburbia. We sang a song where the melody repeatedly sang the words “We must go.” My heart was once again reminded of an important message that day, and the lyrics continued to replay over and over in my head… all the way back to Portland.
“God of Justice” (We Must Go) by Tim Hughes
God of Justice, Saviour to all
Came to rescue the weak and the poor
Chose to serve and not be served
Jesus, You have called us
Freely we’ve received
Now freely we will give We must go live to feed the hungry
Stand beside the broken
We must go
Stepping forward keep us from just singing
Move us into action
We must go
To act justly everyday
Loving mercy in everyway
Walking humbly before You God
You have shown us, what You require
Freely we’ve received
Now freely we will give
Fill us up and send us out
Fill us up and send us out
Fill us up and send us out Lord
bryan on May 26th, 2007
And this is the greatest paradox of all, that the same thing is both standing still and on the move. For normally he who ascends never stays still, while he who stands still does not ascend. Yet, in this case, it is precisely through being still that the ascent occurs. The meaning of this is that the more firm and immovable a person is in the good, so much the more does he accomplish the race of virtue. For whoever is uncertain and unstable in his convictions, has an unsure grasp of the noble; he is “storm tossed and carried around,” as the Apostle says (Eph. 4:14), and in doubt and shaken in one’s conceptions about reality and, as a result, incapable of ascending to the height of virtue.
- An excerpt from Gregory of Nyssa’s “Life of Moses”
I have been reading from a book with a selection of Christian Mystic writings. There’s one thing that I really like about the mystics, which is how they seek to understand how what they read in the word and what they experience come together. In other words, what they experienced about God had to be brought in the light of scripture. This is something I learned from a young age, growing up in the Assemblies of God. Whenever someone gave a message in tongues, or a prophecy it was a given that it had to line up with the Bible.
I guess I write about this for two reasons. First is that I know many people are wary of post-modern christians because of emphasis on experience. The biggest problem I see with this is that if we deny experience, we pretend that what we have experienced does not impact the way we read and interpret material. I don’t see any way that we can pretend that our experiences don’t factor in with our understanding of God. I see it throughout the gospels as Jesus explains to the disciples how He is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy, and I see it in Acts when the Bereans hear the gospel preached from Paul’s experience, and the first thing they do is diligently check it with scripture.
As part of our discussion group for theology last year, we decided to reconstruct the Wesleyan Quadrilateral(how scripture, reason, tradition, and experience play into our understanding of God). As I sought to do it, I knew the traditional sola scriptura approach that it is scripture first before everything else, but I just don’t see it. Part of the wonder of Christianity is that we have a God that we can interact with and whom we experience existentially( Kierkegaard was a Christian Existentialist). So it has never made sense to me that we downplay experience.
That said, as the mystics held and my church I grew up in held, we have to bring that experience in the light of the Bible. So it is never enough to just say that because I experienced it, it is plainly true of God, it must also line up with the written revelation. However, I think that experience plays a major part in how we read the Bible and it gives us enlightening into certain texts, and then those texts give us a better understanding of how to live. So I guess I would say that Experience and Scripture must work together.
P.S. I do believe that reason and tradition also play a part, albeit smaller parts than scripture or experience.
I write this though, primarily to encourage you to seek Christ in your prayer life, through contemplation, through meditation and to seek to see how God is at work constantly in our lives. Be encouraged that how we experience God in those circumstances is indeed important.
bryan on May 15th, 2007
This weekend, Jeff and I chatted about adding a Book Recommendations Page, so you will notice that there is a new recommendation tab that you can see books that we recommend that have been useful to us. This book list will expand as I think of books I left out, as well as Jeff, Alyssa, Gregg and others chiming in on some other books. So keep checking back!
heffe on April 25th, 2007
So, the past couple of days I’ve been thinking about the place of tradition in the Church. I used to think that the reason for the removal of such items related to tradition such as the Lord’s Table, stained glass, icons, and the like was to more accurately focus on an invisible God rather then to “worship” these images. It made sense to me that using these types of items in our sacred space could lead to worship of those items or an incorrect view of God or both. An example of this from the Bible, is the worship of the bronze snakes on a pole, that Moses held up in the desert, before King Hezekiah destroyed them. They were initially a symbol of salvation, some even say a picture of Christ on the Cross, but they were perverted into an object of worship and deification. Perhaps a modern day issue is the blond hair blue eyed Jesus pictures that we see so prevalent on calendars and in children’s books and such.
The other approach is that these sacred items and traditions could be used to have a more profound encounter with God through the use of sacred items and sacred spaces. I’ve talked to several people who have attended Eastern Orthodox churches for a while who do continue to use Icons in their worship, and they are just a tool to focus on God in a different way. In terms of traditions, the way we engage in traditions such as the partaking in the Lord’s Supper (Maybe the only lasting tradition in our Evangelical churches) communicates our beliefs and reinforces our theology.
The questions I have for discussion are the following: What traditions/sacred Items have we lost that you feel we should reclaim? Do you feel that using sacred items in worship is beneficial or detrimental? (Perhaps a separate post on the Lord’s Supper is in order, but if you’d like to comment on the way the Lord’s Supper has been taken in your experience, feel free)
bryan on April 24th, 2007
I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole orthodoxy/orthopraxy thing and how I balance those two out. Just in case folks aren’t familiar with the terms I will give my quick understanding on both.
Orthodoxy: Believing the right thing, having right theology, really reading the Bible correctly etc.
Orthopraxy: Right living. Faith without works is dead, really living out what we believe in our interactions with others.
Right now, I feel like I’m getting overloaded on orthodoxy and not having nearly enough time to focus on orthopraxy, I know all this stuff but I feel like I need to go out and work on really living it.
For those of you who hadn’t heard, I decided to change from MDIV to MA Pastoral Studies. A lot of it is tied up in the idea of living out what I’m learning.
So I want to get a discussion started on this. What do you think of these two ideas, and how should we balance them out in the church?
