Check out this Priest
The Associated Press
Tuesday, December 22, 2009; 5:49 PM COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina priest missed the $1 million top prize in a poker tournament to be televised this weekend but he won $100,000 for his church and he hopes his participation gives viewers a “fun twist” on their perceptions of the priesthood. The Rev. Andrew Trapp said he entered the PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge in hopes of putting St. Michael Catholic Church “super close” to its $5.5 million fundraising goal to build a new facility. He also wanted to strike a public relations blow for priests. “At the very least, even if I didn’t win any prize money, I was hoping it would help people to see that priests can have fun and be normal people and hopefully get a little bit of a fun twist on the image of the priesthood,” the assistant pastor said Tuesday. The top prize went to retired New York Police detective Mike Kosowski. But Trapp won $100,000, untaxed, in a semifinal round in October for the coastal church’s building fund, which has amassed $4 million after four years of fundraising.Sorry if you stopped by the blog yesterday or Saturday and there was nothing here. My domain mapping expired and I had to get things renewed. No worries, I am back. I know that you were all really concerned something had happened to my blog.
Quick Hits
Big game for the Skins tonight. It is not a game they need to win, but players are playing for their jobs now with a new boss in town and Mike Shanahan looking on and deciding if he is coming to town or not. My prediction – Giants 27 Redskins 24
Brittany Murphy died? That is random and tragic. Her death makes me think of a great silly 90’s movie, Clueless. Whatever happened to Alicia Silverstone? What has she done for the past decade? Are she and Luke Perry doing Lifetime movies together somewhere?
You have to read this blog account from James Duncan, a professor in SC who was critical of a marketing campaign of a local church. This account is horrifying and unfortunately all too real about how vindictive and evil Christians, even pastors can be.
What if God had chosen to be incarnated as a woman?
Great statement over at CT on the Prosperity Gospel. I wonder how many of us will admit that there is a bit of prosperity gospel that has sunk into our own lives just as the result of living in our culture?
Christmas Thoughts
Has Christmas changed for you? Has living in such a severe economic climate helped to reshape any of your Christmas feelings? Maybe I am simply maturing ( I am 33 after all and the bones are aching and the hair is retreating) or maybe my eyes are opened up a bit wider, or maybe I am simply listening to God better, but this year Christmas feels different. I am treasuring the joy of Christmas more this year. I am enjoying Advent with gusto. I am delighting in my family. I am absolutely unconcerned about anything that has to do with me and presents. I am just thankful. I am blessed. I am aware of those around me who have far more need than I.
This year, this decade in fact, have been dark. There world seems more ominous after the last ten years, humanity seems more fallen, the myth of human progress is more obvious. And yet I am so hopeful and filled with joy. It’s almost Christmas and if we ever needed a reminder that God is in control and that everything will be made right one day it is now. Christmas is our reminder that we don’t really understand very much in this world especially when it comes to God’s plans and we don’t have to worry about being in control ourselves. God has got it under control. So as you gather this week for worship and feasting and presents and singing and holiday traditions just take a breath and remember that there is no darkness that can overcome the light of Christmas. The light of Christ is shining forth and it is time to rejoice.
Christmas is coming, come soon Lord Jesus, come soon.
Mike Shanahan? Bill Cowher? Mike Holmgren (please no!)? Jimmy Johnson?!?! Thankfully for all Redskins fans Vinny Cerrato resigned today as team president. Vinny, the de facto GM since Joe Gibbs re-retired, had to be held accountable for the teams failures this season and he resigned, I would guess, rather than being fired. So what does it mean for the Skins?
First, it is an early Christmas present. With the season winding down it means that Daniel Snyder can start shopping for a new GM and maybe coach before the season is over. With teams already talking to the big names out there, and there are plenty of big names out there, you know Dan has a jet gassed up and ready to fly around the country throwing tens of millions of dollars at some of these coaches.
(Wow that was fast, 5 minutes after I finished this post the Skins hired Bruce Allen, son of legendary Redskins coach George Allen as the new GM. Evidently Dan has been busy. So there, step one is complete. This also means we may need to add John Gruden to the list of coaching candidates because of his close ties to Allen. Not sure how Chucky would look in burgundy and gold)
What is also important about this is that maybe the Skins will get their first GM with serious credentials since Snyder took over. Bobby Beatherd and Charlie Casserly were instrumental in helping Gibbs build our three Super Bowl winners. We haven’t had a good GM since, including Gibbs. We need someone who will put a stamp on this organization and help Snyder resist, well being himself.
Here is the plan to fix the Skins. Decide whether you prefer Shanahan or Cowher and go and get them no matter the cost. (It is a done deal that Zorn is gone) My preference is for Cowher because of the tough as nails football he prefers which would be a great thing for this team. But if he likes living in NC and being on TV too much I know they can get Shanahan with enough dough. Second, keep Jason Campbell. He has proven that he can be a good QB and Shanahan can really help a QB like him. If you aren’t sold on Campbell, whose relationship with the team may be too broken at this stage to fix, then either draft the best QB available, (I am not really sold on McCoy or Clausen, but that isn’t my job to evaluate QBs) or get a solid replacement. The Skins just have to be realistic in the fact that no matter who they get they won’t be better than Campbell for several years at least.
Keep Blache and all the defensive coaches, these guys are really getting it figured out. The defense is pretty stacked except in the secondary where we have never been able to make up for tragically losing Sean Taylor. (I get this enormous pit in my stomach every time I think about what Sean would have done for our team the last two years. We make the playoffs last year and have a drastically different season this year with him back there I guarantee it. I only ever get this pit thinking about Sean or Len Bias.) We need safeties and corners who don’t get beat by double moves. Carlos Rodgers who has always been okay and never really good is probably gone so go and spend some money on a solid corner.
Next, go ahead and dump Portis, even before the concussion this year he was done. Next year will be uncapped anyways, just eat his money and send him packing. Simply draft some good young legs and put them back there. RB’s are best between 22-28 anyways, get a cheap one and save some money. It won’t matter anyways unless we spend some money to upgrade the O-Line. Samuels is probably done. Randy Taylor is done. Rabach, Williams, and Dockery have all jelled pretty well by this stage so go and get two new tackles, one through the draft and one in FA and see if you can’t get some consistency going.
If the Skins can execute some of these pieces next year is maybe an 8-8 year and then we will see. They are a mess, but there are good pieces in place here. The defensive line, linebacking corps, WR’s, TE’s, and part of the O-Line are solid. (I think the QB is solid too, but Dan does not.) So go get a new identity as an organization with a new big name at the top and build on Vinny’s positive work. So long Vinny we hardly knew you and yet we all have such strong emotions for you. Good luck in your next endeavors whatever they may be outside of football.
(This is the fourth post in a series examining the thoughts of Deep Church by Jim Belcher. Jim has written this book in an effort to offer a Third Way beyond the Emerging and Traditional Churches and the increasing divide between the two)
The most frequent charge I hear against the emerging church, leveled especially at its most well known leaders, is that their theology has become un-Biblical because of their view of the atonement. Specifically, there is a charge that emergents have rejected or downplayed the significance of the penal substitutionary theory of atonement.
In brief, this theory states that Jesus’ work on the cross was willingly and intentionally Jesus exchanging his life as a payment for our sins. This substitution allows us then to enter into right relationship with God through a payment we could not have made on our own. Jesus suffered and was punished on our behalf, a punishment that was necessary based on our sinfulness.
In Deep Church Belcher delves into his own struggles with the traditional churches handling of the gospel, his struggles with emergent theology of atonement, and tries to find balance between the two. His charge, that many have made of the traditional church over the past hundred years is that salvation has become far too individualized. We talk about Jesus’ death on the cross as if it was simply a way to get us to heaven. We believe, we are saved, and we are saved from hell end of the story. But the primary focus of Jesus’ teaching was on the Kingdom of God and how Jesus came to offer hope for a better life right now. This is a hope that carries us into a glorious future when he returns, but his death on the cross wasn’t to give us fire insurance.
Reacting to this reduction of the gospel, that stripped out much of the theology of the kingdom of God from the traditional church, emergents and plenty of traditionalists alike have worked to bring kingdom theology back into the Gospel. The charge against the emerging church, however, has been that they have gone the way of liberalism and grabbed a social gospel that doesn’t need the cross and abandons Christ’s work on the cross. Is this a fair charge?
Belcher thinks it is an unfair charge that is leveled at emergents especially Brian McLaren. McLaren fully embraces the need for personal salvation through the blood of Jesus. But Belcher believes that some of the theology coming out of the emerging church has lost the importance of substitutionary theories of atonement. He contends that it is in fact Christ’s work to pay for our sin that allows him to usher in the Kingdom of God and to subdue the powers of evil at work in this world. Kingdom theology stresses Christ’s dominion over this world and his work to redeem and subdue evil, but without the justification that comes through his work on the cross this is not possible.
Of all the sections of the book, this is perhaps the most interesting aspect of Belcher’s work. In his search for a third way, a path of unity for emergents and traditionalists, he is working to demonstrate how a life of true kingdom living is most appropriately based in a belief in the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross. He contends that traditionalists have often erred in not realizing that the outcome of satisfied punishment is not just forgiveness but redemption and restoration and that emergents have erred if they have tried to root kingdom living in theology outside of blood of Christ as a substitution for our sins.
I think Belcher is on to something in this section of the book, working to do fair justice to both sides of the aisle, but I am not sure there is a problem with most emergents having lost a belief in substitutionary atonement. But there has been such a strong reaction against the church on this issue as a litmus test of orthodoxy that a group of people who are naturally anti-establishment have fought back in an unnecessary battle.
The atonement is a multifaceted mystery of God’s love for it. I would contend that scripture strongly supports substitutionary atonement, but I would also contend that it supports other theories and aspects of the atonement that are vital to us embracing the fullness of the gospel and to live fruitfully in the kingdom of God. Substitutionary atonement is at the center of our understanding of Christ’s work on the cross but we can understand this part of the atonement and still miss out of the fullness of the gospel. This is an area in which emergents and traditionalists are wise to listen humbly to one another and seek a way forward together.
Quick Hits
It is too bad Jason Campbell isn’t going to be back next year because he is showing that he is a good QB. It is going to be a bummer watching him win with another franchise.
The Wizards are a mess. 5 straight losses by 11 combined points! We lose our beloved owner and it all goes to pot.
Baklava is the most underrated holiday treat
My three year old can operate my iTouch like nobody’s business. I think he could easily outperform most people over the age of 50 on it.
Do you think Jesus actually spent time as a carpenter? This has been on my mind all week. We don’t know if Joseph was around to really teach him the trade or if Joseph was even any good. If Joseph was a bad carpenter would Jesus have been a bad carpenter as well?
Vision, Facilities and Staffing
Yesterday I spent the day working again with Auxano, the visioning process experts, that we have partnered with for a 6 month visioning journey. They have been fabulous and I highly recommend them to any church looking to better discover and integrate their unique into the life of their church.
As part of our talk yesterday about vision casting and integration we talked about how our vision as a church should directly inform our facilities and staffing. This seems like a no brainer, but how many churches have facilities and staff that don’t line up with their vision or with any vision? In the year I have been at DCC my thinking on staffing and facilities has already really changed. We aren’t sure exactly where this visioning process is leading us, but in order to be the kind of missional church God is calling us to I have a sense that we are going to need to be very adaptable and fluid. We can’t be too top heavy with facilities or staffing. We don’t want long term debt. We don’t want to over commit ourselves to anything that might hinder our ability to quickly respond to a vision God might give us. I have a strong feeling that within the next two years we need to be debt free and in a significantly stronger financial position to be ready for the vision God is going to give us.
But, the difficult piece in accomplishing this is going to be resisting the urges to try and be like everyone else. I already have found myself fighting the urges to try and raise money to hire more staff, to borrow money to improve our facility, and to dream of a building we can build. This is especially hard because we own land that will be completely paid off in less than a year, have plans for a building, and embarked on a first capital campaign before I arrived. But even with all these pieces our vision must drive any decisions we make regarding building, what to do with our land, or any staff we add.
That was a beautiful clarifying moment for me.
Back from Bethlehem
Sunday night at DCC we hosted a Night in Bethlehem and what a great night it was. This family event put out by Group Publishing is almost a mini-VBS with a full production event for families. Sometimes meeting in a warehouse has its advantages as we were able to breakdown our whole set up and transform the warehouse into the streets of Bethlehem. What was really great about the event was that it was an opportunity for families to go through the activity together and share a Christmas experience. For our church it allowed families with older children or people without children to serve the families of our church. It was all really beautiful and my wife gets huge props for organizing all of it.
After almost four years of blogging (how in the world have I found things to write about for four years? I could have written two books during that time or gotten a PHD or something) I decided to finally update my This is me the last time I checked page. I read the old one the other day and decided that wasn’t really me anymore. Just wanted to let you know.
In a land far, far away there lived a monkey. This monkey actually lived on an island. One day there were torrential rains that never seemed to end and the island began to flood. The rain and the waters kept coming and coming until one day, the monkey was left with only a little bit of land and one tree. As he was sitting up in his tree, he noticed another animal in the water. It was moving back and forth. The monkey was so worried about the little animal and wanted to rescue it. So, the monkey risked its own life to go out to the end of the branch and snatch the animal out of the water to prevent it from drowning. He put the animal on the ground to dry out under the sun and get warm. The animal flopped around and the monkey thought he looked so happy and was jumping around in excitement. Then, the animal was lying perfectly still and the monkey thought it looked so peaceful. Of course, the animal was a fish…..
Dave Gibbons pastors a remarkable church in California called Newsong. This multicultural, margins reaching, spread across the globe church has shown some incredible initiative and creativity in embracing the fullness of the Gospels call to reach all people and be a blessing to all the world. I encountered Dave for the first time at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit this past summer. While there I picked up his book The Monkey and the Fish. I will be offering some posts and offering some questions and comments as I do.
(I am still working my way through Deep Church as well and will have a post later in the week continuing that conversation)
Dave Gibbons named his book after this parable because in his own estimation the church is the monkey. The world around us is changing rapidly, and despite good intentions, we are struggling to keep up with our changing world and to carry out God’s purpose for us. Dave says, “To effectively carry Jesus’ gospel to various places around the globe today – more important, to be Jesus’ gospel – listening is required. We need to be sensitive to lead with an eager learner’s resolve. Those who follow Jesus embody fluidity, adaptation, and collaboration. It’s what we call the third-culture way. Adaptable to changing circumstances. To challenging cultures. To complex crises and problems.”
The focus of the book is on what Dave calls becoming third-culture Christians. What does it mean to be third-culture? Sociologists talk about third-culture as the creation of a new culture out of the adaptation of two other cultures. For example a parent working in another culture will bring their first culture into a second culture. The children of that parent will grow up in both cultures and create a third one, with respect for and understanding of both of the cultures. This cultural sensitivity and adaptability, Dave contends, is vital at this moment in history for the church.
For the church Dave defines third-culture as :The mindset and will to love, learn, and serve in any culture, even in the midst of pain and discomfort. This is the only way, he contends that we will be able to bride the increasing divide between the culture of the church and the globalized world around us.
So what do you think? Do you see a cultural divide between the North American church in particular and our culture around us? What about between the church and cultures around the world? How much does Jesus expect us to adapt our culture or to embrace another culture to share his gospel with the world? What is the hardest part of actually doing this?
Let it snow Let it snow Let it snow
Winter gave us an extra month off this year (as opposed for the “Hey welcome to Indiana we are going to start snowing the first week of November and not stop until March” welcome we received last year). But today the snow started falling and it will keep falling off and on for a couple of days. Oh well, I am prepared this year. For my birthday I got a new ski coat, some serious boots, and a new comfy sweatshirt for when I come home each day. I even have my snow blower gassed up and ready to go. Oh man, I really sound like I am from Indiana now.
Continued Disappointment
After the weekend my sports teams had I have to vent for a moment. I will do so briefly and without typing in caps.
The Skins, as awfully as they started the season should be 6-6 and trying to make a playoff push. Instead they are 3-9 and thinking about what to do in the draft and who will be doing the drafting. Yesterday’s game, however, was simply finding unbelievable ways to lose a game. I was so frustrated watching it my daughter kept trying to console me. (While patting my leg…”Daddy it is okay, no one is going to die, it will be alright, we can play games together instead of watching this.”)
The Terps had a good shot at beating a really good Villanova team but they can’t rebound and Villanova was insanely hot from 3 in the first half. They will finish 9-7 in conference and squeak into the tournament, but unless Vasquez starts making at least 40% of his shots this will be a lost season. They look better when he isn’t on the court right now.
The Wizards are simply stinky. They need Mike Miller back and they need to play some defense. I can’t believe I am putting our season on the return from injury on a white guy with a ponytail, that says enough doesn’t it.
Barna on Mainline Churches
The last 50 years haven’t been kind to mainline denominations. George Barna’s new report offers interesting insight into what is really happening in these churches. While attendance and giving numbers have not been nearly as bad as some have thought, the future is not looking bright. Attendance and giving are no longer equaling participation in the life of the church. Barna calls this “softer commitments” from those who are part of mainline congregations. Check out the study it is really interesting.
Anglicans Elect Lesbian Bishop
Intentionally ignoring the pleas of the worldwide Anglican Church, the Episcopal Diocese in Los Angeles elected Rev. Mary Glasspool as assistant Bishop. This move doesn’t surprise me, the ordination of homosexuals in the Episcopal church seems to be a decision not to be soon overturned. What grabbed me in the article was this quote from the Bishop elect.
“Any group of people who have been oppressed because of any one, isolated aspect of their persons yearns for justice and equal rights,” Glasspool said in a statement, thanking the diocese for choosing her.
Any group of people who have been oppressed because of any one, isolated aspect of their persons!?!? Regardless of where you stand on the whole debate, how is our sexuality isolated from any other aspect of our lives. There are many arguments being offered around this issue, but let’s not be ridiculous. Our sexuality is an integral not isolate part of who we are. Isn’t that why scripture talks about it all the time. If it was isolated then it wouldn’t affect our spiritual walk or our emotional state or our physical well being or our soul. But we can no more isolate our sexuality than we can isolate our personality or our physical state from the rest of our person. You can have lots of conversations around this issue but that is not one aspect that there should be much conversation about.
For a month at the box office John Cusack has been working to save his family from the world wide apocalypse of 2012 rightly predicted by the end of the Mayan calendar and some New Age scholars. It certainly makes for a great movie trailer with Cusack driving his RV through Yellowstone as the whole place explodes as a super volcano. A number of world religions point to 2012 not only being the epic showdown between Palin and Obama (OK no religions actually predict that) but also the end of civilization as we know it. At least that is what Hollywood wants you to believe. Real Mayan scholars dispute much of the hoopla regarding imminent apocalyptic doom just years away, especially if people are basing this prediction on the Mayan calendar. Watching the ridiculousness of Cusack as a hero trying to save his family when literally the whole world is turning against them and trying to link this to any religion is lunacy. It is at once both amusing and encouraging to realize that people outside the church have struggled with how to treat the apocalypse as much as the church has. 
Ever since Jesus ascended from the earth and promised he would return the church has tried with frequent and miserable failure to walk the line between a proper attitude of expectant preparation and active searching for signs that Christ’s return is imminent. A quick browse through popular Christian bookstores or through the program guide of a Christian broadcast station will reveal that 2000 years later we are still trying, and still failing with frequency, to walk this line.
In the first and second century, apocalyptic literature was very popular. Tony Jones in The Teaching of the Twelve, his look at the ancient Christian document the Didache, points to the expansion of the apocalyptic genre from Daniel through the inter-testimental period, on through the Qumran community and John the Apostle. In the early church this genre was still very popular, especially since the teachings of Jesus himself seemed to indicate he would be right back. You can just imagine the young church sitting around and dreaming up the terror and beauty that would accompany the return of the Lord at any moment. Of course that can also be very distracting to simply living your life.
So it is with such encouragement and blessing that we read the words of instruction given to young Christians in the Didache. This document was most likely written to instruct catechumens in their daily walk. Here in this primitive Christian community that may have existed in this first generation of the church, this tension between waiting and watching was clearly understood. And the instructions given here may be the key to actually walking this line in the way Jesus intended.
At the end of the Didache we have a short but powerful passage about our call to understand the return of Christ in our daily lives. The text reads:
“Watch over your life, that your lamps are never quenched, and that your loins are never unloosed. Be ready, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”
The Didache goes on to further instruct the young Christians to watch out for false teachers, especially the “world deceiver” who will come and do iniquitous things that have not been done since the beginning of the world. The language sounds much like Jesus’ words to his disciples in Matthew 24-25 and Paul’s words to the Thessalonian church. There is evil at work in the world, it will bring with it destruction and suffering for the church, but your job is to be prepared for it and to remain true.
The real gem of beauty in this part of the Didache is the simple instruction to be ready. It is important for these young Christians to understand that indeed Christ will come again and at his coming there will be the resurrection of the dead and the judgment of all people and the praise of Jesus as Lord by all people. So make sure you are ready.
It would serve us well as the church to try and practice these simple words of eschatology more often in our instructions to our churches: be ready. Watch your lives, gird your loins, keep the lamps burning and be ready. There are no words of panic or predictions about how soon this will happen, there is just simple advice of what to watch for as these young Christians go about living out their faith.
At the end of the chapter, where Trucker Franks adds his two cents he says, ““These people weren’t sitting around
waiting for God to rapture them out of there,” Frank says. “They were doing everything they could to live in the faith
and make the world a better place. They weren’t concerned about when Jesus would come back.”
In the majority of books, TV shows, and sermons being offered in our current apocalyptic genre the message is seldom as simple and beautiful as Christ is coming back so be ready. You wonder what we could make room for on our bookshelves if we got rid of all of our apocalyptic writings that are filled with charts and graphs and replaced them with simple reminders to watch and be ready. In this concise and beautiful little instruction book we have indepth instruction about following the way of Christ, living as a sacramental community and worship. But here at the end when it comes to the end times the message is pretty simple and clear. “Be ready, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Amen.
Have you read the Didache yet? Tomorrow I am joining in on the Didache Blog Tour for Tony Jones’ new book. There have been some really interesting posts so far this week as people have walked through the first 6 chapters of the book. Head over to Tony’s blog for his interaction with each post and check out what they are saying.
November 30: An introduction with Tony Jones
December 1: Chapter 1 – The Most Important Book You’ve Never Heard of – with Adam Walker Cleaveland at pomomusings and Thomas Turner at everydayliturgy
Tony’s response
December 2: Chapter 3 – The Didache Community – Then and Now – with Ted Gossard at Jesus Community and Amy Moffitt at Without a Map
Tony’s response
December 3: Chapter 4 – There Are Two Ways – with Tripp Fuller at homebrewedchristianity and with Holly Rankinzaher at happydaydeadfish
Tony’s response
December 4: Chapter 5 – Sex, Money, and Other Means of Getting Along – with Chris Monroe at Paradoxology and Mike Todd at Waving or Drowning?
December 5: Chapter 6 – Living Together In Community – with Brother Maynard at Subversiveinfluence and Mike King
December 6: Chapter 7 – The End is Nigh – with Greg Arthur at Holinessreeducation.com and Mike Stavlund at Awakening
December 7: Epilogue – with Luke C. Miller and Carl McColman at The Website of Unknowing
December 8: Special Question – Is this text – The Didache – really so important? Why? Do we know that it was important to the earliest communities of Christians? with Jonathan Brink at Missio Dei
December 9: Special Question – Does the Didache teach or advise anything that substantively differs from what was decided at the earliest ecumenical church councils (such as Nicaea) with Dwight Friesen
December 10: Special Question – Why is the Didache relevant, in particular today? Is it more relevant today than it was, say 100 years ago? Why? with Bob Hyatt
You are a dreamer, a visionary, and a straight up idea person. You are very creative.
