Hey everyone. Just wanted to let you know that the Dane’s are gonna be out of town this weekend, so we’ll be meeting at my and Shaunna’s house this Sunday for our conversation. Same time 6:00pm.
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Here are some different depictions of Jesus that will surely make for some interesting meditation…
*Close-up from left eye area of the above picture*
Saturday Greg, Gina, Shaunna, and I [along with Greg and Gina's teenage son Parker--your presence there was awesome Park!] took off to Crossville, TN for an administrative planning retreat type thing. We had a great time relaxing, enjoying God’s creation (which reveals His invisible qualities), discussing where we are and where we’re going in this journey God has us on as a community of faith, assessing and reflecting on where we’ve come thus far, and much more. I guess us four are kind of the admin. team of sorts, so it was a great time to reflect, project, and reconnect with each other (whoops, that rhyming thing was SOOO not on purpose–someone kill me now! I’m one step away from alliteration! ahhh).
Last night we piggy-backed on our discussion about Peter and Cornelius’s visions in Acts 10 from last week with a conversation centering around Acts 11. In the first part of this chapter, Peter explains (almost verbatim) to the other Jewish Christians what had happened between he and Cornelius in the previous chapter. In his explanation he mentions something that we all seemed to have missed last week. In verse 14 Peter quotes Cornelius’s servants, who are quoting Cornelius, who is quoting the angel who spoke to him as saying, “…He [Peter] will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.” Hmm, that’s weird. Chapter 10 verses 1-2 says that Cornelius was God-fearing, devout, and gave generously to the poor. So here’s the age old question that was posed last night. Is a knowledge and devotion (like that of Cornelius) to God the Father without a knowledge of His Son Christ Jesus not enough for “salvation”?
I myself have taught in the past (using Romans 1:20 as support) that those in darkest Africa who die not knowing the name of Jesus but worshipping the unknown “power” who has created and revealed Himself through nature will be saved. Romans 10:9 says, “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Paul goes on in the same chapter (v. 14-15) to say, “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’”So in light of those passages, will those who never call on Jesus’ name (even because they never learn of it) be saved??? To be honest, I don’t know. Needless to say, we had a wonderful conversation that raised more questions then it did answers, but then again I love when that happens. I’d love to see some comments from some people much smarter than I regarding this sticky topic.
Hey everyone. Just wanted to give a quick reminder that tonight is every other mid week dinner hang out thing. Time: 6:30. Location: the Davis’ house.
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Ok, so this has nothing to do with spirituality, church, or anything of a theological nature, but I’ve just gotta give a shout out to Vandy! They made the front page of the USA Today’s Sports section today…who’d of thought?
Here’s the pic:
Well, so much for my new office. I just found out that the Starbucks company, including the one that just opened up down the street from our house, is apparently more of a corporate money mongering beast than I realized. Did you know that Starbucks stores are NOT free wi-fi hot spots?!?! Yeah, you have to pay to get a T-Mobile Hotspot Account! At $9.99/day or $29.99-$39.99/month I think I’ll pass–I mean crap, I’m already paying 4.50 for a cup of coffee! What’s going on here? How, and more importantly why, would ANY coffee joint not have free wi-fi to offer to their patrons??? Isn’t that just good ole’ plain marketing? If I’m a Starbucks sales analyst I’d be thinking, “Hmm, free wi-fi = more patrons + longer visits = increased coffee sales.” Hmm, maybe they should hire me! Sorry, ranting over…
I do know that this unfortunate learning experience is enough to make me NOT consider T-mobile as a cell phone provider next year when our Sprint contract runs out (though it’s not their fault I guess), and it’s borderline enough to make me refrain from throwing a bone (or $$$) at the Starbucks company as well. But alas, I fear that lack of other alternatives to satisfy those late night coffee cravings and conversation venues will drive me yet again to the belly of the beast named Starbucks. Maybe I’ll use this as motivation to considerer pursuing my jazz lounge/coffee bar/Laundromat idea. Hey, don’t knock it ’til you’ve heard the whole story…
What a conversation we had last night! As we dove in to Acts chapter 10 together, some VERRRY interesting things came to the surface…and not necessarily things that ANY of us have ever had before. Up until this point in Acts, those who have come into the fold of “the Church” have been natural Jews, proselytes (converts) to Judaism, or Samaritans (a kind of “half-breeds” of Jews and Gentiles). The story in Acts 10 is that of a Roman soldier, a centurion to be exact, named Cornelius…you can’t get any further from “Jewish” than that.
Anyway, Cornelius has somehow come to a faith in the God of the Jews, but does not yet know of the work that this God’s son, Jesus, has done. An angel appears to him in a dream who instructs him to send for a man named Peter who is staying in a nearby town. While two of Cornelius’s servants are on their way, Peter is on a roof praying. It is important to note that Peter (one of the twelve disciples of Jesus) is ALLLL about being a “good Jew” even as it pertains to following Jesus. As Peter sits out on the roof praying, he “falls into a trance”–yeah, a trance!? While in this trance, he too has a vision. His vision is of a sheet being let down from Heaven that has all kinds of creatures inside it, the voice of Jesus then says “Get up Peter, kill and eat”. Peter replies with the statement, “Surely not, Lord! I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.” He says his because the old Jewish law given to Moses restricted the eating of certain animals that were deemed “unclean” (to see a list of these animals, see Leviticus 11). Jesus then instructs him to not call anything unclean that the Lord has made clean.
So what’s the reason for this vision? To let him know that it is totally ok to go back with the approaching servants to Cornelius’s house (for it was also against Jewish law to associate with Gentiles). The place, however, that we found ourselves dwelling for the majority of the conversation was that of Peter’s trance. Do people and can people today still fall into this type of “trance” in which God interacts with them??? In Acts chapter 2 verse 17, Peter quotes the prophet Joel in saying this:
“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.”
So the answer? We all happened to agree on, “yes, people can still fall into these trances”. Then it REALLY got interesting. What could these trances be? Could they be somewhere in between awake and sleep? Whoa, whoa, whoa…could it be the dream world? Hmm. And so I leave you with this question that we were left with last night: If God created the dream world, wouldn’t that mean that He has a purpose for it???
The “white band” (pictured left), the international symbol ofve or 150 million anti-poverty campaigners worldwide, was projected on the side of the UN general assembly building building Wednesday (pictured below) as a reminder that we camapigners are watching the World Summit in New York, calling for renewed commitments and increased progress in the fight against extreme poverty. Link: the One Organization. 
If you didn’t already know, this blog (like it says in the sidebar) is “Chronicling the mysterious adventure of being formed by God into a new community of faith (church) in a postmodern world…”. Seemingly built into this adventure, however, are many dangers such as relying on “misplaced dependencies” (to quote a couple of friends), using alterior motives, falling prey to control issues, etc, etc, etc. The struggle that we’ve most recently been involved in is that of our motives.
Here are some questions that are bouncing around in our heads and in our conversations lately. Why is it important to invite people to be a part of this community of faith identified as “the Gathering”? When we do invite people to hang out and join with us, is it because we truly care about journeying with them as God brings about spiritual formation in all of our lives, or is it because we just ‘want more people’ to be a part of “the Gathering”? If the answer is the latter, then why? What is the obsession that “churches” have with the number of people they claim as their “members”? And truly, what do “numbers” represent or prove that is of worth or value???
Many more thoughts in that line of questioning have and are sure to arise still, but that is the basic trajectory that they have set out on. I sincerely hope that as God moves us to invite people to journey with us as “the Gathering”, that we will do so because we genuinely believe that living in connectedness with other follower of Jesus is an important (but still merely one) facet of spiritual growth and formation; and that perhaps a community of faith will be able to more greatly impact and befriend the communities in which we live our daily lives. I do so dearly hope that this is our motivation, not that we are subconsciously obsessed with building yet another structure, another organization, or another kingdom of our own…
Just a little afterthought: This post wasn’t meant to imply or hint at anything specific. It wasn’t meant to say we have it right and mega-churches have it wrong. It was simply meant to be an open and authentic musing of “the struggle we find ourselves in”…
My wife and I attended the Nashville Red Cross’s “Town Hall” meeting this morning at Lipscomb University. Richard Patton, incoming chairman of the Nashville Red Cross chapter, stepped up to the podium in jeans, a casual button down, and loafers with no socks to give a laid back opening welcome in which he informed the around 400 attendees that giving of their time was very “cool”. Following Patton was the Nashville Red Cross’s new CEO, Collen Zakrewsky, who spoke about the “marathon” of relief that we are involved in, not the “sprint”. Taking the podium thirdly was Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell, sporting slacks and a button-down with no tie (I must say I was quite relieved at the abscense of political stuffiness and pomp). Other organizations represented were the Urban League of Middle TN, Hands on Nashville, and the Second Harvest Food Bank.
Patton explained that the Red Cross’s primary function is immediate disaster relief. He went on to explain that the reason that many offers to volunteer have not been followed up on is directly related to this. His example was this: Red Cross chapters all over the country see a hurricane approacing, load up into the “ERV’s” (Emergency Response Vehicles), and head down to an area close to the zone which will be affected. Once an emergency is declared and local officials ask for aid, the volunteers spring in from a short distance away. The problem with this disaster is that they did not expect the extremely high volume of evaccuees to reach this far north, and due to their most highly trained volunteers being off on relief assignments around the coast, no one is left to train the volunteers here. Measures are being taken, he noted, to “crash train” others so they can train the hundreds of volunteers in the area.
So here are some ways you can help. Call number “211″ to request or offer aid, register to provide “Elisha Room” for hurricane victims at HurricaneHousing.org or MoveOn.org, or if you are a Church looking to provide larger scale aid (or housing), register at OpenChurches.com. Another option presented this morning was calling 615-843-4002, but I never quite caught what that number was for.
It is the Churches privelage to ensure that the “marathon” relief is ensured, and that as volunteers drop out in the early miles, the kindness of our Maker and King is continually played out in us, His people, for the long haul.
Just a reminder that this Sunday’s conversation will be at the Davis’ house, NOT at the Dane’s. Despite the different location, the time and everything else stays the same. See ya Sunday evening at 6:00.
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