SPECTO DIVINA week2

Here is what I'm working on for my second week of "Specto Divina" with THE 4400 (feel free to use if the opportunity ever lends itself).


Synopsis
Over the last century, thousands of people have gone missing. Suddenly and
inexplicably, 4400 missing people are returned all at once, as they were on
the day they vanished. Unclear what this world altering-event means, the
government investigates the 4400 to piece together where they've been and why
they've been returned. It quickly becomes apparent that their presence will
change the human race in ways no one could have ever foreseen.

WHAT HAPPEND LAST WEEK: When a comet that was supposed to harmlessly fly by the Earth suddenly changes course, the extinction of humankind seems imminent. Countries around the world
launch nuclear missiles to destroy it before it can destroy the planet, but
surprisingly, the missiles have no affect. The reason: this is no comet.

The ball of light enters the atmosphere, and just when it looks like humanity
is about to go the way of the dinosaur, the ball slows, hovers, and eventually
touches down. Soon after, the light shrinks to an intense point, then explodes
outward in a concussive burst, leaving behind 4400 people, including men,
women and children of all ages. All are missing persons who have been gone
anywhere from a few months to 50 yearsÖ and none have aged a day beyond when
they were last seen.

The 4400 are rounded up, quarantined, and eventually released back to their
families. As they begin to try and reconnect with their ìlife interrupted,
not all is well: soon after their release, some of the returnees begin to
experience unexplainable, and for some, uncontrollable new abilities. It's up
to Tom Bishop and Diana Skouris, two Homeland Security agents, to unravel the
mystery behind the 4400.


"SPECTO DIVINA" (Sacred Viewing) EXERCISE:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leader: Creative God who is wild and unknown
ALL: BE IN OUR VIEWING AND IN OUR
SENSING
Leader: You are mysterious and close to us at the same time
ALL: INSPIRE US AND MOVE THROUGH
US
Leader: You call all of us to love each other and be there for each other
ALL: BE IN OUR MOMENTS TOGETHER AND
OUR MOMENTS APART

SILENCE AND STILLNESS:
Slowly relax and quiet your toes, moving up all the way to your
head. Allow space for each muscle to relax. Focus on your
breathing... slow it down... As you sit in stillness- simply repeat to yourself:

(breathing in) "Lord, be in my viewing... (breathing out) and in my heart"....

Meditation in the Silence:
As you watch Episode 2 tonight- outline or draw your hand on a sheet of
paper. The rest of the page is up to you. Using supplies around you- create your own "expression". It can say ANYTHING, look ANYWAY you want it to, express ANYTHING you want it to. IT'S A REPRESENTATION OF YOU....

But that's not all- AS YOU WATCH Episode 2:
WATCH for a scene... a person... or emotions that somehow connect with you...
ASK YOURSELF why this situation is connecting to you...
CONSIDER WORKING it into your "CREATIVE REPRESENTATION"....
also, work your name into your representation (or feel free to leave it
anonymous)

CLOSING BENEDICTION (from The Prayer of Saint Patrick)
Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
Amen.

AFTER YOUTH GROUP, I'm planning on taking the pages and creating a quilt of hands to put on our youth room wall. I hope that it turns out well. I suppose we shall see...

Here are scenes from Season 1; Ep. 2 of The 4400. (about 10 minutes)

shalom,
jnorm

FRIDAY'S RANDOMONIUM...

JESUS AND HIS BROTHERS...

episode 1: "The Story of Marty"

A WEEK WITH... ROBERTA BONDI day 5

Roberta Bondi on "Scripture narratives and The Church":
(taken from a transcript at a conference)
"We do tell the biblical stories differently from generation to generation because we never tell them without ... if we tell them truthfully without the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which is God speaking in each generation and in each time and in each place.

What do we do with questions like, "Don't you think we should be telling these stories, God said them, I believe them, that settles it?" That I would say we should ... we don't have any business saying that because the Bible is the book of the church, and it is interpreted by each time and each place with the help of the Holy Spirit and it's going to be different from time to time.

But we also ... human beings make up the church, and unless we are orthodox Christians, Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox, we have to say that the churches are also broken in the same way that individual human beings are broken. And maybe this isn't inappropriate if we think of the story of Jesus coming back to Thomas with the wounded hands and feet. You know, we're always wounded."

MOVE OVER LECTIO DIVINA...

During our Wed. night youth group time I experimented with fusing together two things that I really enjoy- lectio divina (or sacred reading) and the use of media.

A couple of weeks ago our youth group started watching season 1 of THE 4400. I won't go into detail about the premise of the show, but it's very cool. We didn't get to discuss it too much the first week, but the youth were really into it so we all agreed to continue watching it.

Obviously, this is going to take a while and I didn't like the idea of "only" watching a television show as our youth group meeting. I do believe that by watching within the church the tv shows/movies that teens are watching we allow a bridging of culture and possibly a little more critical thinking when it comes to pop culture.

So, for week two I took a little different approach: I'm calling it "Specto Divina" or Holy Watching. We watched the second part of the 4400 but made a prayer practice out of it. I'm not saying that everyone got something out of this experience, but we did introduce a "new practice" into the life of our group: making something ordinary and everyday into something sacred.

Here's how it worked:
1. We began with centering prayer asking God to be present in our viewing
2. Everyone was asked to be mindful in their watching the 4400, watching for scenes, emotions, people, or events that stand out to them. Around the room was various art supplies such as clay, crayons, paper, and markers.
3. As students watched the show we all were invited to express what we saw and experienced through any artistic/creative way we in which we were drawn.
4. Afterward I simply asked- "What did you see?" People began to share their experiences.
5. We closed in a prayer and benediction.

Some of the things that came out of the "Specto Divina" tonight were:

Scene: A person who is one of the "4400" experienced the pain of loss- One of the women in our group shared that she could identify with that kind of pain.

Scene: A woman who is one of the "4400" appears to her husband after 11 years of being missing and pronounced dead. The husband shares with her that he used to just have conversations with her when he missed her- a student shared that this reminded her of what prayer is like and talking to God.

Scene: a teenager who is one of the "4400" gets into a fight at high school, defending himself from another person- one of the guys in our group thought of the proverb "pride comes before the fall." (proverbs 16:18; yeah rob, i found it)

I have to say, after having reflected on the night- this turned out to be a pretty holy moment in my life. And I can't wait to see what God has to show me next week.

see a clip from THE 4400

A WEEK WITH... ROBERTA BONDI day 4

Roberta Bondi on "her own encounters with The Early Church":

"I do remember clearly coming across a sixth-century homily which said that we ought to go easy on one another, and not judge one another, because God regards us so much more mercifully than we regard one another, and more mercifully than we regard ourselves. This was a mind-boggling, revolutionary idea for me. It struck me that if this is true, then God isn't a terrifying person I need to stay away from.

It rang so true that it completely undid me. It didn't even occur to me that it might be wrong. I really regard that as the moment when I became Christian. What I couldn't do for several years was assimilate this truth. Because if this were true, many other things that I believed couldn't be true. And I had to work through those other things --which had to do with being female, and leaming that I really am made in the image of God, that God really does have a preference for the oppressed and the outcast.

This was before the advent of the women's movement. I had all these parts of myself that did not go with being feminine in the early '60s and mid-'60s, and I was doing everything I could to discard those parts of myself. These were good things about myself that I was trying to get rid of. It took me a while to recognize that God didn't see me in the same way I saw myself, but saw me through much gentler eyes."

A WEEK WITH... ROBERTA BONDI day 3

Roberta Bondi on the "Obstacles to Prayer":

"I can think of three kinds of obstacles that get in the way of prayer. The first is that for many of us in mainline Protestant traditions -- and for many Catholics too, I'm discovering -- prayer is not something we have been allowed to talk about at home or in church. It is regarded as an embarrassing topic, and a private topic. People who are not intimidated in any other area of their lives are intimidated by the idea of prayer. We are especially intimidated when people announce themselves as experts in prayer - and there are those who take the "I will tell you how to do it" approach.

Another problem is that we relate to God in terms of duty. There are liberal and conservative versions of this, but it comes to the same thing. The prevalence of "ought" and "should" language kills a lot of relationships with God. Nobody wants to be around someone whom you relate to only in terms of duty. I'm willing to relate to people that way some of the time, but don't expect me to want to do it. But for the monastic teachers of the early church, with whom I've spent a lot of time, a relationship with God is one of desire and delight. This is really a different basis for prayer.

The third thing that gets in the way of prayer is the images of God that we carry around, and which govern our hearts. We can have an image of God as a terrifying or judgmental being. In that case, perhaps, for some of us, not being able to pray is itself a gift of grace. Our ideas of God often come from when we were little, and they are associated with authority figures. Churches may reinforce the vision of God as a judge or as one who is interested in us only when we're bad. You can see this in the way we sometimes talk about the "will of God" for our lives. The "Will of God" almost always has negative content to it. What God wants is definitely not going to be what we want."

BEWARE OF... THE CHIN

In a freak scientific experiment- gamma rays overwhelmed Jonathon Norman and transformed him into the freak of nature mutant/villan- THE CHIN (bom bom bom!!!). No one is safe!!!

h/t: Emily (not quite right in the head)

A WEEK WITH... ROBERTA BONDI day2

Roberta Bondi on "practicing spiritual disciplines":

"I tell students that there's no way to understand the monastics unless you're trying to approach things from their angle. This is not just intellectual stuff, it's about a relationship with God. I don't care if they end up feeling at the end of the semester as though they haven't succeeded -- whatever that means; they've got to commit themselves to trying.

I ask everybody to include three elements in their prayer. One is some portion of scripture every day. I explain to them the Liturgy of the Hours, and how the backbone of monastic prayer was the psalms. The other part of their prayer is conversation with God in which they really speak their minds. We talk about the things that make it difficult to speak our minds to God, especially about being afraid of God. The third part of their prayer is silence: just sitting in God's presence without saying anything or having any expectations of God or of themselves. I call it kitchen table prayer. Just spending time with God as we spend time with a friend without tallking.

For students who are afraid of God, who have emphasized God's righteousness and their sinfulness, God's bigness and their wormlikeness, I suggest that they find something that doesn't occupy their minds but is pleasant to do, like handiwork, or doing a crossword puzzle, or even reading a detective novel, and to just sit in God's presence. That is a way to begin to learn that God is trustworthy and that God isn't that person they're afraid of, but somebody else.

I emphasize that however much time they've decided to give to prayer, they should cut it back before they even start. Maybe start with ten minutes. Then they can add a little bit if they want to. One of the things that derails prayer faster than anything else is starting with some sort of noble idea of what it ought to be.

I stress that prayer is a pretty ordinary, everyday kind of thing. Yes, it has its high moments, but a lot of prayer is just a matter of showing up."

Day 1

A WEEK WITH.... ROBERTA BONDI day1

It has been a while since I have premiered a "Week With..." series. So I decided that this is the week. A couple of years ago I spent a couple of days at Penuel Ridge Retreat center in silence. While there my prayer focus came out of journaling reflections while reading a wonderful book, To Pray and To Love: Conversations on Prayer with the Early Church by Roberta Bondi.

In this book she weaves stories from the Desert Fathers and Mothers along with her own thoughts and study on prayer. Bondi became a great prayer companion and teacher through that book.

She is one of many voices that I'm not too sure a mass audience has heard of but her work in the area of prayer, practices and the Early Church Tradtion is an amazing contribution to the Church.

In the late 70's, when she arrived on the Emory campus to assume a tenure-track position in the Candler School of Theology, Roberta Bondi was the first woman who'd ever done so. And when she earned tenure at Candler some years later—and later still earned promotion to full professor—she was the first woman who’d done those things, as well. The first. But not the last.

For where she goes, Roberta blazes a trail for other women to follow—right into the heart of the decidedly male-dominated theological world. Both in the academy and in the church itself, Roberta has modeled the life that women can lead, the work that women can do, even when the unenlightened fail to welcome them with open arms and attitudes. At Candler, Roberta has given persistent, eloquent and effective voice to women's issues. And she has encouraged the increasing number of female colleagues and students drawn to the program in Women, Theology, and Ministry --which she helped to found—to speak (and write) their minds (and hearts), as well.

Of course, such a feminist endeavor is perfectly suited to a church historian who has spent much of her professional career seeing to it that the remarkable but all-too-little-known women of the early church, the fourth and fifth century women ascetics, for instance, or such later figures as the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich, have a chance to speak again, a chance to have their voices heard today.

She has "developed innovative pedagogies, finding ways to combine careful instruction in ancient texts with a focus on contemporary appropriation of those texts by her students." She believes passionately that knowledge of the fourth and fifth century women ascetics, can "provide a lens for reflection on the experiences of contemporary women and . . . suggest and model ways in which women's experiences—tribulations and joys—can be transformative and generative of strength and courage."

I hope you are nurtured, challenged and angaged with a Week With... Roberta Bondi.

WESLEY JUST DOESN'T MATTER TODAY?

I am reading through Steve Long's book John Wesley's Moral Theology again and it has struck me differently than it did the first time that I read through it.

In this book Long contends that Wesley is no longer relevant to the world today, but this is exactly the reason why he thinks that Wesley's voice is NEEDED. He says,

"I find his (Wesley) work compelling precisely because of its alien character ot our modern sensibiliites. I am attracted to those aspects of his work that seem somewhat outrageous to us, those statements of his that we no longer utter in polite company. To ask why they seem outrageous to us may say more about us than they do about him. It may help us understand our own times better and also receive Mr. Wesley's witness for the church catholic in these times."

One of the things that I appreciate about the emerging church conversation is it's dedication to engaging the postmodern culture and it's worldview. Somehow in my ministry I find that postmoderns and young people who are put off by church find there way to either me or the youth group. Maybe it's because I fit better in the ambiguousness of postmodernity than the orderly modern world view. I don't know.

I am excited though becasue over the last several weeks, especially through the UMerging Colloquy I have come into contact with others who see Wesley and Methodism as a way to engage the postmoderns in our still predominantly modern culture. I see this as very much a missionary effort- to reach and build friendships with people who feel out of sorts and out of sync with the modern world view and way of life. It reminds me of what I've read and learned about the early Methodist Societies that were not out to replace the Anglican Church but to stand alongside it and within it as a way to reach those the church could not reach and be a place of renewal with a different way of being "Church".

Long goes on to say later that:
[In my book] I will not argue that Wesley's work matters because it is so exceptional or unique. It is not. It matters because it is part of an important conversation about God and the moral life that he inherited from others and to which he made some faithful contributions. To be faithful to the Wesleyan tradition, we should read and hear the witness of those others as much as we read and hear the witness of Wesley."

I wonder if a postmodern embrace of Wesley for Emerging Methodists is embracing Tradition as just as important as Reason and Experience (Scripture has always taken the drivers' seat among the 4 areas). The moderns have done well to read Wesley through the lens of scripture, reason and experience- just look at the state of our churches. We stand at polar extremes- Conservative AND Liberal Fundamentalism- both struggling to have THE say on doctrine. But Tradition has lost its place at the table. If Long's interpretation of a now irrelevant Wesley is correct then the postmoderns have a chance to go back to the premoderns and pre-enlightenment thought and see what Wesley's heroes had to say in shaping Wesey's thoughts and PRACTICES. It may be through reading the narratives of scripture through the lens of tradition equally with reason and experience that we can reframe a Different sort of Methodist who is able to better navigate through the postmodern waters we're finding ourselves in more and more.

shalom,
j.norm

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABBY

Today the most special little girl in the world is 2 years old. Happy birthday seamonkey, Daddy loves you.

FRIAR GAVIN

Congratulations to Gavo for being accepted into the Order of Saint Luke. I think being a part of this sacramental community is a perfect fit for his gifts and obviously the community is blessed to have him contribute to their common life.

WHERE I LIVE....

It really is all good in "da hood" when it comes to my neighborhood.

FRIDAY'S RANDOMONIUM- The O.T. pt.1

YIKES...

Watch what happens when a Fox News anchor person goes head to head with Westboro Baptist- SWEEEEET!!!

(h/t Marko)

BISHOP Q&A (Q1 AND BISHOP SCHNASE)

Ok, I'm beginning to unpack the Q&A time with Bishop Schnase and Bishop Jones from the UMerging Colloquy. Rather than post my opinions on each one- I'm going to post each question/response 1 at a time and hold my thoughts for the comment section along with you. I hope these will be a point of real dialog and working through tough issues of ministry.

click here to listen (about 10 minutes)

This is a wonderful opportunity for us to engage the Bishop's responses and each others' comments in a way that opens up the possibility for Kingdom building and imagining new ways of doing church.

THE LIBRARY IS LACKING...

I was reading Christianity Today's list of the top 50 books that have shaped Evangelicals and it would seem that my library is lacking. However I do own 10 of the 50 books listed, which is more than I thought. But those ten that I do own have been quite influential in shaping me. Check the list out and see how many that you own. Be honest- doesn't everyone have a copy of David Wilkerson's The Cross and the Switchblade somewhere in a box in the attic?

CALLING ALL TRANSLATORS

Back in 2001 Jay Voorhees and I made contact... with Brian McLaren for the first time. We were at very small conference where Len Sweet and McLaren were introducing the idea that in this cultural shift that we find ourselves in- postmoderns are natives and moderns are immigrants in a foreign land. And what is needed now are translators to help communicate back and forth.

I think as new expressions of ministry and the way we rethink church comes more and more prevelant the umc needs to find translators to help navigate.

So.... calling all navigators- brush up on your postmodernism- become familiar with what's going on... but also make sure you do a refresher course on your modernism 101.

j.norm

MARION ON THE INCARNATION

The Son took on the body of humanity only in order to play humanly the Trinitarian game of love; for this reason also, he loved 'to the end,' that is, to the Cross; in order that the irrefutable demonstration of the death and resurrection not cease to provoke us, he gives himself with insistence in a body and a blood that persist in each day that time imparts to us.
- Jean Luc Marion

KEEP SUNDAYING IN US LORD...

A prayer for Monday by Bishop Willimon:

Gracious God, by your Son, Jesus Christ, in the power of your Holy Spirit, you call ordinary people to do some extraordinary things as ministers of your Gospel. Preserve us, dear Lord, from Monday morning fatigue and Monday morning despair; keep Sundaying in us, even on a Monday.

This Monday morning I praise you for the woman who had the guts to face down three obnoxious adolescents in a basement Sunday School room yesterday, to tell them about Jesus, just because she has faith that even teenaged boys are children of God.

I thank you for the gift of the teenager who stood up and read Scripture in her little congregation yesterday morning, not because she wanted to, but because she is the best reader in the church. Praise to the church that recognizes her gifts; praise to her for her willingness to use her gifts in her church.

Thanks for the wonder of the young couple who, despite all they know of your determined propensity to commandeer a life for your own purposes, stood before a suburban congregation and dared to bring their baby for baptism, despite their inability to know how you may use their beloved baby in your Kingdom.

I sing the glory of the man, former factory worker, ex-alcoholic, who rose before a congregation full of folk nobody else wants to be near, and preached the good news of your salvation of the lost. Thanks for using his sermon to work a miracle, despite his grammar.

I laud the faith that you put in a man sixty years ago, that enabled him to arise again for the two thousandth Sunday of his career and, once again, preach the gospel even though in all that time and effort, he has seen almost no response, no measurable results. What faith he has in your faith in him!

In all times, and in all places under heaven, you have called forth people to witness to your work, to join in your work, to embody your grace, and to speak your judgment. For your blessed determination not to leave us to our own wretched devices, for the gift of your Body in motion, for your miraculous Sunday morning work among us, thanks.

Amen.

May the blessings of the God whose love knows no limits continue to "Sunday" you throughout the week. Peace friends.

j.norm

MOBY

Electronica music genius, Moby, shares his testimony here... pt. 1. It's worth the listen.

THOUGHTS...

This morning even though I still have not processed much of what I experienced over the last several days at the UMerging Colloquy but I am currently feeling a tremendous sense of of overwhelming grief and hope. My grief is that we are at a place where our leaders in the UMC are not necessarily able to hear the concerns and voices of emerging leaders in the UMC. I know some will read that and say that things have almost always been that way in the UMC since they can remember too. Maybe that's your experience however I would contend that as we are transitioning from a modern to a postmodern context (which does mean that we are still in a modern situation, only it is rapidly changing like never before) there is a barrier that is not about having a bishop who is liberal or conservative, a micromanager or a freespirit, a prophetic voice or a traditionalist, younger or older- it's about power and the ability to hear the concerns of a new kind of methodist pastor who is interested in new ways of doing church.

We happened to have at the colloquy two of the youngest bishops in the umc come and speak to us and allow us to ask questions. This is definitely not an "age" thing because although I wouldn't say they are both out to lunch- it is obviously that they are both highly intelligent and talented Christ centered leaders- but I'm not sure that they have "any" grasp on this emerging context in which some leaders, of all ages, feel called to respond to.

My hope however is lies in the collegues that I met and met up with over the week. We shared, struggled, worshiped and prayed for a new way to do church together. I heard about ministries that would seem as far from a traditional elder's context to elders talking about the changing dynamic of an urban neighborhood and how to reach the people around them and offer them hospitality and community.

My hope is with leaders like Hal Knight and Doug Strong who are able to see beyond the matrix of the everyday United Methodist Machine that is finely oiled and maintained by years of systemic power struggle to maintain thing as they are and not allow the Holy Spirit to do the Holy Spirit's work in raising up new kinds of ministry.

My hope is with the Foundation for Evangelism and visionaries there who are able to see past what is and invest in dreams of what might be. For all you bishops, ordained ministries, district councils and people of power- that's called RISK. Risking to love the unlovable in risky and messy new ways that may or may not produce visible "fruit" for a very long time is what what we're talking about.

Bishop Jones, whom I have much respect for and have been shaped by in my studies made the comment directly to me this weekend. My concern that I raised to him was that some people who feel called to ministry are both thankful for the spiritual practice of the itineracy system for elders but also feel called to a particular missional context- such as urban neighborhoods or rural areas to work among the poor and marginalized. How do we hold both in tension?

The last part of his response was- "There is much talk amoung professors and students in academia about the "poor and marginalized". And while we are all talking about it- there is still poverty and people who are hungry."

Bishop Jones- you are right. There is much talk. But if you had really heard my heart and the hearts of others in that room- I mean really LISTENED to our hearts, you would have heard people saying-
"BISHOP!!
SEND ME!!! SEND ME!!!
TAKE A RISK!!!
IT WON'T LOOK NEAT AND NICE!!!
IT'S GONNA BE MESSY BISHOP!!!
BUT SO IS POVERTY BISHOP!!!!
SEND ME!!! SEND ME!!!

IT MAY TAKE SEVERAL YEARS BISHOP!!
IT MAY TAKE 20 YEARS BISHOP-
BUT EMPOWRED COMMUNITIES TAKE TIME TO BUILD

WE MAY NOT WANT TO GROW INTO A MEGA CHURCH BISHOP
WE MAY WANT TO BREAK INTO ANOTHER CHURCH WHEN WE REACH
A CERTAIN NUMBER BISHOP!!

WE MAY WANT TO TRY SOME CRAZY STUFF BISHOP
BUT WOW WE'RE LIVING IN CRAZY TIMES BISHOP

I MIGHT JUST FAIL MISERABLY BISHOP
BUT I'D LOVE THE CHANCE TO TRY IT BISHOP
JUST INVEST IN RISK... CREATIVITY... AND THOSE WITHOUT A VOICE BISHOP

WHO WILL GO?
SEND ME!!! SEND ME!!!

in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit,
shalom.
j.norm

MUSTACHE FIGHT CLUB FOR MEN

(written on Friday evening)
Apparently Jay Voorhees is making quite the impression at COR this week, but not in the way that one might think. In the dark reaches of the basement where all us Emergent Wesleyans have been put there is another meeting going on. This one is much more sinister than the UMerging Colloquy.

So what is this group? The Mustache Fight Club!!! What are they fighting over you might be wondering. Well to put it lightly, one of the staches will come out on top in this over the top weekend brawl to be THE STACHE that resides on the baby face of Methodism's favorite emergent blogger.

So who will win? YOU DECIDE. Comment back your vote for which stache will win the title of "Dirk D." and call that baby face Jay Voorhees it's crib.

Contestants:
first up is the dali mustache

second we have the english stache

third is the fu-manchu

and the last contestant is the walrus stache worn by fred nietzsche

of course the reigning champion is the pencil style mustache currently known as Dirk D. but has found fame by such notables: Edgar Allen Poe and Marin Heidegger, and Ghandi.

Who will rise to the top (of the lip)? JAY WE ALL LOVE YOUR STACHE- DON'T CUT IT!! In this election- Your vote counts!!! Vote Green!!

shalom,

j.norm

WHEN THE MUSIC'S OVER...

Well the UMerging Colloquy has come to an end. Brian McLaren closed us out with challenging words to take Jesus' invitation to live into the Kingdom. I'm glad to have been part of this week and now Gavo and I are ready to hit the road and head back home. I look foward to seeing Jen, Jonas and Abby and to sleep in my own bed tonight.

More on the week to come....

shalom,
j.norm

UMerging... are we there yet?

It's been a great time thus far at the UMerging Colloquy. I've had wonderful conversations, had some hard words to wrestle with, and have made some new friends along the way.

So what have we been up too?

Obviously it's always great to hang with Gavin and while here we've discovered that our Worship Feast CD Project is out on the market. (Huh? Jenny, what's up?)

Jay Voorhees has obviously been kicking butt and taking names pushing the envelope on issues of ministry, ordination, and how we do church.

Rev. Fife... well what can I say he is just one mischeivious dude. He's shifty, taking on many different names... bombarding the blogworld with many different fraudulent personalities.

Susan Cox, a DS in Kansas, right now is leading a round table discussion with Bishops Scott Jones and Robert Schnase.

Here are a few snippets of what we've experienced so far. Rather than write about it you can hear it for yourself:

Singing/Worship last night

What is the Emerging Church- Kirsten Oh

Talk around my table about the Emerging Church

Our opening liturgy

more to come later

TWO METHODISTS AND A SAINT WALK INTO A BAR...

Like I said earlier this morning (last night for me actually), Gavo and I hit the road in the wee hours of the night to head to Kansas City for a colloquy/conversation between theologians and ministry practioners to talk about what role the emerging church plays in relation to the umc and vice versa. This was an invite only dealio but somehow I managed to persuade someone that they needed a token methodist from "Da Eastside". I'm not sure but that's my best guess as to how I'm here.

So here we are right now in the car racing along interstate 70 about 20 minutes from downtown Kansas City- Me, Gavo and St. Augustine. That's right St. Augustine's on pilgrimage with me too. One of my practices this weekend will be to engage two readings from and about Augustine. One is a wonderful book that I read over the summer and am going back to read again- "You Converted Me: The Confessions of St. Augustine" translated by Robert J. Emonson with study notes written throughout the book by Tony Jones, published by Paraclete Press. I love the translated version of this book and Tony's casual and insightful notes makes it feel like I have Augustine as a travelling companion alongside Gavo, as the ancient saint shares with me his life story and invites me to consider his faith and how it might inform my own. If you are looking for a devotion book you might consider it.

Augustine is also speaking words of wisdom from premodernity through Michael Hanby's book- Augustine and Modernity. This is a book in the Radical Orthodoxy series. Now this one is a little heavier reading but a perfect match for pilgrimage to a sacred space where we will be discussing the shift in ministry and life from modern ways of thinking and "doing" church to postmodernism (i would argue that we are still knee deep in the hold of modernity but quickly moving past it into something very different).

This pilgrimage for us feels much like other pilgrimages we've taken together- prayer books in the back seat, camera, road trippin sharing stories about life, good music (burlap to cashmere at the moment), looking for the sacred in most every moment, etc... the traffic cop pulling us over was a whole new adventure to the trip. What is very different this time around is our location. We have two destinations for our pilgrimage. The first stop in which we will be arriving in just a few minutes is Jacob's Well which is one of the "emerging congregations" that have been a model for the emerging movement. We'll be having lunch with Mo, their youth pastor and listening to how an emerging congregation equips for youth ministry.

The rest of the weekend we'll be hooking up with our buddy Jay Voorhees and pal Ingrid (who is currently in DC at Wesley School of Theology) chillin' at The Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City where Adam Hamilton is the Sr. Pastor. I hear this is a pretty big congregation. We'll see what else comes out of this weekend. More to come.

shalom,
j.

THE PILGRIMAGE OF ILL REPUTE

It's the pilgrimage that neither of us really wanted to admit to- which is why as the world was nestling in for a long evening's slumber as a trunk was closing with luggage nestled in for a long night's mysterious and secretive drive.

Gavo and I headed off into the night. Our destination- A UNITED METHODIST MEGACHURCH in Kansas City!! This is going to be a pilgrimage that we won't forget. But wait, this may not be what you are thinking... More to come tomorrow. Now sleep is beckoning at 4:20am.