The Craw

Bedtime Stories

After reading to my kids through The Chronicles of Narnia, The Book of Virtues and a number of kids books by George MacDonald and Peter Leithart I decided to take a break with some stories of my own. One night while acquiescing to my kids request to tell them a story I came up with two unlikely super-heroes: The Marshmallow Man and his sidekick Fireball (at left). Both are Christians who use their mutations to aggressively pursue justice and defend the weak against a panoply of evil doers, some of whom switch sides.

Eucharist for U2

This is what happens when liturgy is de-coupled from history. I've listened to U2 since I was "new-waver" back in the early 80's but a U2charist? Yuck!

Uh-Oh

Sasoon, LA - On Thursday a crack Presbyterian FVRT (Federal Vision Recon Team) which was performing an orthodoxy sweep through the bayous stumbled upon another secret FV hideout. "The place didn't seem be used for anything anymore" said Presbyterian elder Harold T. Monk, "but we did find several implicating icons." The icon pictured at left, which contains the image of a well-known FV figure, was found buried under a pile of old Credenda Agendas.

The noose tightens!

Emerging I

One of the books I am currently reading is "The Emerging Church" by Dan Kimball. Thus far I have found much of the book helpful and a major sub-text, that church is not here to offer services to me (the Christian) but to serve the world is good. Kimball writes on page 95: "Our motto degenerated from 'We are the church, here to serve the lost and broken world' to 'What does this church have to offer me.'" This is a decent assessment but it seems to miss a third option in between. That is, instead of thinking about the institutional church being a place either to serve the world or serve itself, how about the church being the place where we come to be served by God? I'll come back to this idea of Gottdienst (God's service) in a later post.

Moving along, Kimball is genuinely interested in restoring the peculiar intimacy of the early church. He writes about what he sees as helpful emerging trends: "I also believe we will likely see more smaller gatherings birthed in homes. I also believe we will see emerging churches for church communities in workplaces and apartment complexes."

The problem I sense here, however, is a decoupling of the church from the story of redemption. A story of repeating cycles leading from glory to glory. The Garden was to begin small and expand "subduing" the natural order to create an ever more glorious atmosphere. But the fall occurred. The cultus of Israel begins with dirt or stone altars and ends with a magnificent temple. The early church begins in an upper room, extends through glorious cathedrals until...oh, oh, we're back in upper rooms. We need to remember that the early church met in back rooms and catacombs because they had to. Why would we intentionally return to a place where the church was prior to major victories over world powers? It seems this sends a mixed message. I think we would do better in going in the opposite direction by taking a wrecking ball to the modernist and minimalist hulks where we currently worship and build some glorious structures.

Also, Kimball has a matrix where he lays out what the "modern" church does and what the emerging church should do:

Modern: Focal point of the service, the Sermon
Emerging: Focal point of the gathering is the holistic experience

The problem I see here is that these ideas are both anti-historical and individualized (prayer and journaling stations) rather than corporate. The Church has traditionally seen the Lord's Supper as the focal point of the service. The all-encompassing rational and didactic orientation of the church is a vestige the Enlightenment. The church is not a lecture hall but the mystical body of Christ but it does and should have an institutional identity. Both the OT and NT make this abundantly clear.

Anyway those are some initial thoughts. Too bad Kimball's up in Santa Cruz. I'd love to grab a pint with him and compare worship notes.

Sabbath Feasting

When I was a Reformed Baptist I held (rather uncomfortably) to a Puritan Sabbath observance model. This meant everything done on Sunday was couched under "works" terminology: Works of Mercy, Works of Necessity. The really irritating part of this was the endless oppression of others (authors from other centuries and places, current Bible teachers, and the uptight guy in the pew next to you who never manages anything outside the church) all having "advice" on how to spend your day. It was a rat race of trying to outdo each other on holiness and coming up with explanations on why you did A or B as a work of necessity or mercy.

Over time I began to get the sneaking suspicion that all this "work" was really more a reflection of a Western imperialist mindset that arose out of the Enlightenment than a biblical model. Work, work even on the day of rest. Also tied into this is the uniquely anglophied habit of couching everything under legal contract concepts. It was all very bland and no one was doing what they said they were doing anyway.

At the end of the day its not a question of what a Banner of Truth paperback says but what the Bible says. One thing the Bible does say is that the Sabbath is a feast. The first of the feasts. In Levitcus 23:2 the Lord tells Moses:

"Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the LORD that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts. "

And in verse 3 what is the first feast? Bingo, the Sabbath.

Now some qualifications. Of course works of mercy and necessity are allowable on the Sabbath but that should not be the focus. Is singing Psalms a capella for an hour, eating bland food, and bemoaning the horrid state of churchmen eating at Denny's "feasting?" I don't think so.

The Sabbath is a day of renewal. It looks back to the Garden and looks forward to the restoration of all things. It looks back to the resurrection of Christ and looks forward to the resurrection of the Church. It looks back to the Last Supper and looks forward to the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. It should be a day of joy, feasting and renewal. A good day to eat some really good food, have a great bottle of wine and take a leisurely stroll through the local park with your kids. If possible, this should be shared with some friends and even strangers. We should come out of the Sabbath rested and jovial. Prepared, because we have seen the Kingdom of God manifested among us, to press the boundaries of that Kingdom further in the coming week. Our kids should look forward to it with anticipation and not look back upon as the most boring and burdensome day of the week.

Here's a nice site with resources for joyful Sabbath observance.

A Parish Cleric

It has truly been a pleasure being a parish minister rather than a power-pastor of a commuter church. During the week I normally work on my sermons in my home office in the mornings because I can't carry all my exegetical and commentary material with me. The afternoons, however, are out-and-about times. I have a route set up now where I visit three different coffee houses to do my other work (paperwork, correspondence, reading, etc.) out in the community. I typically wear a collar and set up my book holder and conspicuously lay my Bible and books out so the titles are visible. Then I just go about my business. People will come up and ask me questions about religion, ask for prayer or just inquire who I am out of curiosity. I also have several business card holders so that I am never without business cards.

On a more parishioner oriented-level, I often meet members of our congregation out in the community several times a week. This is where things get neat in a parish model with serendipitous meetings. As an example, one morning I was meeting with a gentleman from our congregation for discipleship (we meet twice monthly to discuss a book) at our neighborhood Starbucks. While we were talking my neighbor walked by (a older Lutheran gentleman) and said "hi" and then a family from the church came by to grab some coffee and we chatted for a few minutes. This, in my opinion, is what church-life should be like, effortlessly living our lives together in community.

FV: Out of Control

Uric, LA (Reformed Orthodox Intelligencer) - Some have recently suggested that the Federal Vision (FV) movement is heading in the direction of Rome. Our intrepid reporters, however, have found that there is a veritable confluence of bad and heretical influences. The photo postcard at left was purchased at the gift-shop located in the super-secret underground headquarters of the FV movement. It pictures FV Grand Metropolitan, John Tsavta Aeriou (formerly Hazen G. Platz) whose image is often used as an icon in FV churches. This suggests that the FV is not leading to Rome but in fact, the FV is a larger and more sinister conspiracy that is absorbing the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church…into itself!

“This is a rather startling development and establishes that the Federal Vision Movement is a larger and more dangerous trend than first thought” said Garmen Frompmeyer, Federal Vision and Transpersonal Phenomenon expert. He also said “Many people originally thought this was an isolated movement but we now know there may be as many as 6 million FV adherents in the United States alone.”

Many FV churches run as “frontals” a term that is common in FV circles. This means that volunteers “worship” in the small chapels that often occupy the first floor of FV facilities to throw inspectors from a presbytery or classis off. Beneath these chapels, vast Roman-style basilicas, which are accessible via trap doors, exist. On a recent Sunday, one our reporters was able to infiltrate an FV church in Los Angeles by wearing a monk’s habit. What he saw was shocking.

“Clouds of incense drifted upward as I descended the staircase to the lower sanctum” said Dereck Olmes. “Icons lined the walls and people were bowing convulsively before them. Infants as young as a day old were being communed with tinctured bread!”

Well, there you have it folks. The FV is out of control and must be stopped.

The Church Militant

As we have been planting Saint Andrew's Community Church it has been amazing to watch God work and the devil try to throw obstacles in the way. The opposition to getting the church planted and continuing has been surprisingly and, at times, comically fierce. Intense attacks from both within and without the church (including some very bizarre individuals) have repeatedly come just prior to a great blessing by God. The rhythm of the pattern is starting to become familiar and we can now anticipate that something good is about to happen when the enemy attacks.

God always wins:

Psalm 83:13-18 O my God, make them like whirling dust, like chaff before the wind.
14 As fire consumes the forest, as the flame sets the mountains ablaze,
15 so may you pursue them with your tempest and terrify them with your hurricane!
16 Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek your name, O LORD.
17 Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever; let them perish in disgrace,
18 that they may know that you alone, whose name is the LORD, are the Most High over all the earth.

Flannery-ied

I confess it. Yes, I do. I am just now, at the age of 40, reading Flannery O'Connor for the first time. I am truly enjoying it as well. Right now I'm working through "The Complete Stories."

This is coming, mind you, from a man who read his first book at the age of 19. In high school I used to read the back cover's biographical information and then pick out a few random pages and make comments connecting both like, "Its fascinating how Hiiljenck's early life as a Lithuanian immigrant in Burma courses through his treatment of the miners in 'This Big Hole in the Ground.'"

I sometimes got "A's" for such book reports.

In other readings I have been enjoying and profiting from the Church of England series of novels by Susan Howatch. In particular, I found "Glittering Images" one of the most insightful works on pastoral theology (though it was never intended as such) that I have read.

Mid-Life

You turn 40 and you get reflective. What happened to the 30's, they just flew by? I was recently rummaging through some old photos and found this one. It is of me and two fellow NCO's at Twenty-Nine Palms, CA in 1990, just prior to the first Gulf War. I was 23.