Monasticism- MT. TOP Style

Sunday I'll be heading to Mt. TOP for our Youth Summer Mission Trip/Pilgrimage. I'm pretty excited. While staying in the Cumberland mountains where we'll be doing home repair, yard work and whatever God throws our way. I'm always frazzled the week before a trip like this but once I get there I"m definitely in my element.

This year I'm taking a book along with me to use as a devotion time- A RETREAT WITH THOMAS MERTON by M. Basil Pennington. I'm seeing the setup of Mt. TOP- a rustic camp, community of people living a shared and common life together, set times of worship/prayer, community, meals, etc... and times of work/service to neighbor, and play- as a monastic adventure. Mt. TOP as an organization does not see itself this way, but there is a remarkable resemblance to monastic community and structure and the structure of a mission trip such as this.

So next week I'll be away, but keep me and my youth in prayers as we head to East TN to take time out to be a lil' bit monastic.

My Theological Type- You Guessed It- J.W.!!!

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists.

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan


79%

Neo orthodox


75%

Emergent/Postmodern


64%

Roman Catholic


64%

Classical Liberal


61%

Charismatic/Pentecostal


36%

Reformed Evangelical


36%

Modern Liberal


32%

Fundamentalist


14%

What's your theological worldview?
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Baker's Dozen

So while we were at the Emergent Convention last year- Gavin and I really enjoyed sitting in on Jonny Baker's Alt.Worship seminar. Jonny is doing some really cool worship stuff over in the UK at Grace Church.

So in honor of my friend Jonny I composed a song tonight using a Jonny Baker sample. It's called "Baker's Dozen (Video...Music...Whatever)".

You can check it out on the TreeFinger myspace site.

also,
I'm off to Brentwood (just down the road from Nashville) for FRESH- The Tennessee YOUTH Annual Conference. I'm leading two sessions at the conference- Discerning your spiritual gifts- which will be for the entire group, and then I'll be leading a small group on Social Activism. The cool thing is that as we end, we'll be overlapping with our Annual Conference. It should be a good weekend.

shalom,
jonathon

New TreeFinger Track

I just posted 2 new tracks from my newest musical adventure- TreeFinger. You can visit the myspace site and listen or download the tracks right here: Homeward Bound, Blessed are the Peacmakers, Making Space, Trainwreck in the New City.